Skip to content
Learn More → State by State

New York

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 New York.

859Documented
24In custody
787Released
2Awaiting trial

Eras of repression in New York

Where New York’s entries fall across the census’s historical eras.

1950s 137 1910s 137 1970s 87 1960s 87 1980s 81 1930s 65

Documented cases

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

Joseph Starobin
Released
Joseph Starobin was a writer and the former foreign editor of the Daily Worker who was voted a contempt-of-Con...
Mollie Steimer
Released
Mollie Steimer was an anarchist activist in New York City whose organizing centered on opposition to war, stat...
Sidney Steinberg
Released
Sidney Steinberg was a Communist Party organizer indicted in the 1951 second-string New York Smith Act case wh...
Charlotte Stern
Released
Charlotte Stern was an executive-board member of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee (JAFRC), which aided...
Lynne Stewart
Released
Lynne Stewart was a movement lawyer known for representing high profile figures facing charges related to poli...
Walter Stewart
Felon-in-possession of the firearm in the Buffalo protest SUV incident, June 2020. Sentence: 58 months federal...
Rose Pastor Stokes
Released
Rose Pastor Stokes Born to an Orthodox Jewish family in Augustów, Russian Empire; rolled cigars in Cleveland f...
Morris Stupnicker
Released
Morris Stupnicker was an International Ladies Garment Workers Union cloakmakers’ union organizer detained in t...
Iya Fulani Sunni-Ali
Released
Iya Fulani Sunni-Ali, born Cynthia Boston in New Rochelle, New York in 1948, was a singer, educator, and Minis...
Percy Sutton
Released
Percy Sutton, president of the Manhattan branch of the NAACP, was arrested with Mark Lane as a 1961 Freedom Ri...
Momodou Taal
Released
Momodou Taal is a graduate student with dual United Kingdom and Gambian citizenship who was enrolled at Cornel...
Caesar Tabib
Released
Caesar Tabib, from New York, New York, was convicted at the mass IWW trial in Sacramento and sentenced to ten...
Michael Tabor
Released
Michael “Cetewayo” Tabor was a member and leader of the Black Panther Party’s New York chapter, active in poli...
Frank Tannenbaum
Released
Frank Tannenbaum was a 21-year-old Austrian-born IWW unemployed-workers' organizer in New York City during the...
Robert Thompson
Released
CPUSA NY State chairman; WWII Distinguished Service Cross (New Guinea); Spanish Civil War — Mackenzie-Papineau...
Marie Haydée Beltrán Torres
Released
Marie Haydée Beltrán Torres is a Puerto Rican nationalist whose case is closely linked to the clandestine grou...
Alexander Trachtenberg
Released
Alexander Trachtenberg was the founder and longtime publisher of International Publishers, the principal U.S....
Carlo Tresca
Released
Carlo Tresca was an Italian-American anarchist, syndicalist, orator, and newspaper editor who became one of th...
Sojourner Truth
Released
Sojourner Truth, born Isabella Baumfree, was an African-American abolitionist and women's rights advocate. Bor...
George Tyne
Released
George Tyne, a New York actor, was cited for contempt of Congress in 1956 after refusing to tell the House Un-...
William E. Van Amburgh
Released
William E. Van Amburgh, Secretary-treasurer of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society and one of eight Watch...
Harry Van Arsdale
Released
Harry Van Arsdale was the business manager of Local 3 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers i...
Peter Van Schaack
Released
Peter Van Schaack was a distinguished New York lawyer who, though sympathetic to many American grievances, cou...
John Walsh
Released
John Walsh, an RVW leader in the early years of the movement from New York, New York, was convicted at the mas...

Institutions in New York

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

Ellis Island Immigration StationNew York, New York
184 cases
Manhattan House of Detention (the Tombs)New York, New York
17 cases
Sing Sing Correctional FacilityOssining, New York
14 cases
Attica Correctional FacilityAttica, New York
13 cases
Metropolitan Correctional CenterNew York, New York
11 cases
MDC BrooklynBrooklyn, New York
9 cases
Metropolitan Correctional Center, New YorkNew York, New York
9 cases
Blackwell's Island PenitentiaryNew York, New York
8 cases