Learn More → State by State
Pennsylvania
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 Pennsylvania.
431Documented
6In custody
377Released
2Awaiting trial
Eras of repression in Pennsylvania
Where Pennsylvania’s entries fall across the census’s historical eras.
1700s 77
1910s 73
1930s 68
2020s 41
1950s 36
1970s 30
Documented cases
431 entries in the census — every one stays in the record, whether the case is open or closed.
T
Thomas Quinn
Released
Thomas Quinn was a Pittsburgh organizer for the United Electrical Workers cited for contempt of Congress after...
T
Tom Quinn
Released
Tom Quinn was an officer of UE Local 601 in Pittsburgh who was prosecuted for contempt of Congress after refus...
K
Khalid Raheem
Released
Khalid Raheem joined the Philadelphia chapter of the Black Panther Party in 1970 and was arrested and incarcer...
A
Anna Rasefsky
Released
Anna Rasefsky was a miner's wife jailed at Canonsburg, Pennsylvania in the strike during the National Miners'...
S
Stella Rasefsky
Released
Stella Rasefsky was a miner's daughter jailed at Canonsburg, Pennsylvania in the strike during the National Mi...
A
Anita Ricci
Released
Anita Ricci, a Philadelphia native, was twenty-two at the Camden 28 indictment. She had graduated near the top...
J
Jason Robbins
Released
Jason Robbins, 30, ARA/Antifa member; LOVE Park 4 co-defendant in the July 23, 2007 FBI SUV damage. Convicted...
J
Joseph Roberts
Released
“Joseph Roberts” was the name used in court by one of the Philadelphia Nine defendants (also identified elsewh...
J
James Robinson
Released
James Robinson was one of twenty men arrested during the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania and marched...
J
Josie Robotin
Released
Josie Robotin, 25, of Willow Grove PA, was charged August 18, 2022 with possessing an unregistered firearm aft...
W
William Rodan
Released
William Rodan is named in the later exile records as one of the men sent to Virginia with the Philadelphia pri...
L
Lin Romano
Released
Catholic Worker and Plowshares peace activist arrested for a disarmament action against nuclear weapons in the...
J
Jacob W. Rose
Released
Jacob W. Rose was a conscientious objector from Pennsylvania imprisoned during World War I. Court-martialed fo...
H
Harry Roth
Released
Harry Roth was arrested for speaking at an open-air meeting and convicted under Pennsylvania's Flynn sedition...
B
Ben Rubin
Released
Ben Rubin was a young Communist Party organizer in Reading, Berks County, Pennsylvania — a wounded, decorated...
B
Bernard Rush
Released
Bernard Rush was a student at the Workers School in Philadelphia arrested and convicted alongside school direc...
M
Molly Rush
Released
Molly Rush is a Pittsburgh peace and social-justice organizer and the founder of the Thomas Merton Center, whi...
G
Goust Safos
Released
Goust Safos was a convicted defendant in the McKeesport, Pennsylvania anti-war "riot" case of 1937. In 1937 Mc...
P
Paul Sandargos
Released
Paul Sandargos, a coal miner from Scran ton, Pennsylvania, was convicted for distributing literature against t...
A
Archibald Scales
Released
Archibald Scales was a Lincoln University student arrested in 1950 for refusing segregated theater seating. He...
J
Joseph Scarlett
Released
Defendant in the federal treason prosecution following the September 11, 1851 Christiana Resistance — an armed...
D
David Schaeffer
David Schaeffer was a Pennsylvania German of Macungie (Millerstown) and a local leader of the anti-house-tax m...
C
Charles T. Schenck
Released
Charles T. Schenck General Secretary of the Socialist Party of Philadelphia. In August 1917 the local printed...
H
Hyman Schlessinger
Released
Hyman Schlessinger was a lawyer arrested and tried under Pennsylvania's state sedition law for aiding the defe...
Institutions in Pennsylvania
Prisons, jails, and detention centers in Pennsylvania that appear in the census’s case files.
Allegheny County WorkhouseBlawnox, Pennsylvania
23 cases
Walnut Street JailPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania
20 cases
Philadelphia GaolPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania
18 cases
Butler County PrisonButler, Pennsylvania
13 cases
United States Penitentiary, LewisburgLewisburg, Pennsylvania
13 cases
FCI AllenwoodWhite Deer, Pennsylvania
12 cases
SCI DallasDallas, Pennsylvania
12 cases
Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas / SCI Pennsylvania state prisonsPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania
9 cases