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Ohio

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 Ohio.

195Documented
3In custody
189Released

Eras of repression in Ohio

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

1910s 54 1950s 31 1800s 30 2020s 26 1930s 14 2010s 9

Documented cases

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

Shakir Hamoodi
Released
Shakir Hamoodi was a leader in the Muslim community of Columbus Ohio and outspoken critic of the Iraq war who...
Anthony Hayne
Released
Anthony Hayne was one of five men arrested in 2012 after a Federal Bureau of Investigation undercover operatio...
Tom Johnson
Released
Tom Johnson, a Trade Union Unity League and Metal Workers' Industrial League organizer from Cleveland, was con...
J. Henry Kruse
Released
J. Henry Kruse, of Cincinnati, Ohio, began serving a prison sentence on September 7, 1918. He served in Mounds...
Keith LaMar
Released
Keith LaMar, who has taken the name Bomani Shakur in prison, is an Ohio death row prisoner whose case is among...
Charles Langston
Released
Charles Henry Langston, a free Black abolitionist and educator (and grandfather of the poet Langston Hughes),...
Raymond Luc Levasseur
Released
Raymond Luc Levasseur was a leading figure in the United Freedom Front, which operated as an underground cell-...
William E. Lincoln
Released
William E. Lincoln, an English-born Oberlin student, was one of the twenty men jailed for the 1858 Oberlin–Wel...
Deric Lostutter
Released
Deric Lostutter was a hacker affiliated with the group Anonymous who helped bring attention to the Steubenvill...
Ansel W. Lyman
Released
Ansel W. Lyman, an Oberlin student, was one of the twenty men committed to the Cuyahoga County Jail for the 18...
Edson B. Olds
Released
Edson Baldwin Olds was a physician and former Democratic U.S. Representative from Ohio who became a leader of...
Henry E. Peck
Released
Henry E. Peck, an Oberlin College professor and later U.S. minister to Haiti, was one of the twenty men jailed...
Ralph Plumb
Released
Ralph Plumb, an Oberlin, Ohio lawyer and businessman (later a U.S. Congressman from Illinois), was one of the...
A. Philip Randolph
Released
A. Philip Randolph was a Black socialist labor organizer, civil-rights leader, and co-editor (with Chandler Ow...
Timothy Reed
Released
Timothy “Little Rock” Reed became known as a Native American prisoner-rights advocate and critic of prison and...
James E. Robinson
Released
James E. Robinson, age 33, of Akron OH, used the Twitter handle AkronPhoenix420 to claim DDoS attacks on multi...
Charles Emil Ruthenberg
Released
Charles Emil Ruthenberg Born to Prussian Lutheran immigrants in Cleveland; joined the SP in 1909 and edited th...
Fred J. Saal
Released
Fred J. Saal, from Cleveland, Ohio, began serving a ten-year prison sentence for "seditious utterances" on Aug...
Max Sandin
Released
Max Sandin, a Russian-Jewish immigrant living in Cleveland, was a WWI absolutist who refused all military serv...
Mark Alden Schmucker
Released
Mennonite biology senior at Goshen College from Alliance, Ohio, mailed a letter to Selective Service in August...
John H. Scott
Released
John H. Scott, a Black harness-maker in Oberlin, Ohio, was one of the twenty men jailed for the 1858 Oberlin–W...
Jacob R. Shipherd
Released
Jacob R. Shipherd (indicted under the misstated name "James R. Shepard") was one of the twenty men committed t...
James Slovik
Released
James Slovik, secretary of the Marine Transport Workers Industrial Union, Local 200, from Cleveland, Ohio, was...
Joshua Stafford
Released
Joshua Stafford was an activist connected to the Occupy Cleveland movement who was arrested on April 30, 2012...

Institutions in Ohio

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

Summit County JailAkron, Ohio
12 cases
U.S. District Court, Northern District of OhioCleveland, Ohio
4 cases
Licking County JailNewark, Ohio
3 cases
Elkton FCILisbon, Ohio
2 cases
Ohio State PenitentiaryYoungstown, Ohio
2 cases
Mansfield Youth Center
2 cases
Canton WorkhouseCanton, Ohio
2 cases
Kemper Barracks military prisonCincinnati, Ohio
1 case