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Illinois

Political repression plays out state by state — shaped by local institutions, prosecutors, and movements for defense. These are the documented political prisoners and cases the census holds for Illinois.

298Documented
4In custody
274Released

Eras of repression in Illinois

Where Illinois’s entries fall across the census’s historical eras.

1910s 66 1960s 37 1970s 30 1980s 25 1930s 22 2020s 21

Documented cases

298 entries in the census — every one stays in the record, whether the case is open or closed.

Christian Frazee
In Custody
Christian Frazee, age 25, of Lombard IL, was arrested June 1, 2020 near the Lombard Municipal Complex and char...
Larry Hoover
In Custody
Larry Hoover is a former gang member and street level black liberation organizer currently serving concurrent...
Abdullah Malik Ka’bah
In Custody
Abdullah Malik Ka’bah, born Jeff Fort in Aberdeen, Mississippi in 1947, founded the Black P. Stones street org...
Elias Rodriguez
In Custody
Chicago resident charged in the May 21, 2025 shooting deaths of Israeli Embassy staff Yaron Lischinsky and Sar...
Kat Abughazaleh
Released
Journalist, media analyst, and Democratic political candidate. Federally charged along with five co-defendants...
Eqbal Ahmad
Released
Pakistani-American political scientist born in Bihar, partition refugee, Princeton PhD 1967. Former adviser to...
Brent Dow Allinson
Released
Brent Dow Allinson of Chicago refused to register for the draft and was charged with desertion. Sentenced to f...
Olin B. Anderson
Released
Olin B. Anderson, a press agent for the IWW from Kalispell, Montana, was convicted at the mass IWW trial in Ch...
George Andreytchine
Released
George Andreytchine was a Bulgarian-born IWW organizer and editor active in the Minnesota Mesabi Range iron st...
Adolfo Matos Antogiorgi
Released
A Puerto Rican independence activist associated with the FALN, Matos was arrested in Evanston in April 1980 as...
Charles Ashleigh
Released
Charles Ashleigh English-born IWW poet, journalist, and orator who delivered the eulogy at the 1916 funeral of...
Bill Ayers
Released
Founder and central organizer of the Weather Underground Organization who went underground in 1970 after the G...
Shamar Betts
Released
Facebook flyer that incited the May 31 2020 Champaign mall riot; federal Anti-Riot Act. Sentence: 48 months fe...
Emanuel Bronner
Released
Emanuel Bronner was an entrepreneur and peace activist who created Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps. After his family...
William Bross Lloyd
Released
William Bross Lloyd, known as the "millionaire Communist," was a founder and leader of the Communist Labor Par...
Jacob Burck
Released
Jacob Burck was a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper cartoonist in Chicago who faced deportation on contradicted...
Sean Cardenas
Released
Sean Cardenas, 20, of Rockford, IL was indicted by a federal grand jury on January 12, 2021 on one count of ma...
Ralph Chaplin
Released
Ralph Chaplin, from Chicago, Illinois, was sentenced to twenty years in prison at the IWW trial in Chicago. Ch...
Jared Chase
Released
Jared "Jay" Chase was one of the "NATO 3," anarchists arrested before the 2012 NATO summit in Chicago in what...
Brian Church
Released
Brian Jacob Church was one of the "NATO 3." Arrested in a Chicago police entrapment operation before the 2012...
Mark Clark
Released
Mark Clark was a 22-year-old leader of the Peoria, Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party. Born in Peoria...
Frank Corbishley
Released
Frank Corbishley, brother of Zeigler union leader Henry Corbishley, was first held by the grand jury on a murd...
Henry Corbishley
Released
Henry Corbishley, a militant United Mine Workers local leader in the Ku Klux Klan-ridden coal town of Zeigler,...
Edwin Cortes
Released
Edwin Cortes is a Puerto Rican nationalist associated with the FALN-era underground independence movement. He...

Institutions in Illinois

Prisons, jails, and detention centers in Illinois that appear in the census’s case files.

Cook County JailChicago, Illinois
34 cases
MCC ChicagoChicago , Illinois
12 cases
Southern Illinois Penitentiary, ChesterChester, Illinois
7 cases
FCI Pekin Satellite CampPekin, Illinois
5 cases
USP MarionMarion, Illinois
5 cases
Woodstock Jail (McHenry County)
5 cases
FCI PekinPekin, Illinois
4 cases
Stateville Correctional CenterCrest Hill, Illinois
4 cases