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California

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 California.

1,526Documented
39In custody
898Released
17Awaiting trial

Eras of repression in California

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

1930s 354 1970s 205 1960s 198 1910s 174 2020s 131 1980s 90

Documented cases

1,526 entries in the census — every one stays in the record, whether the case is open or closed.

Stanley M. Gue
Stanley M. Gue was an Industrial Workers of the World activist and journalist in San Diego. He reported on lab...
Lázaro Gutiérrez de Lara
Released
Lázaro Gutiérrez de Lara was jailed beginning September 27, 1907, in California and released after 104 days, a...
Vincent Hallinan
Released
Vincent Hallinan was a combative San Francisco trial lawyer who defended longshore leader Harry Bridges in his...
Sami Hamdi
Released
Sami Hamdi is a British political commentator and journalist of Tunisian and Algerian descent, managing direct...
Khader Hamide
Released
Khader Hamide was one of the Los Angeles Eight, immigrants arrested and imprisoned in January 1987 in a case c...
Steven Charles Hamilton
Released
Steven Charles Hamilton was a Free Speech Movement and antiwar organizer who helped organize Stop the Draft We...
Sharla Hampton
Released
Sharla Hampton was jailed on August 1, 1969 while distributing the Panther newspaper near San Francisco’s bus...
David Harris
Released
David Harris emerged as a leading figure in draft resistance and antiwar organizing, arguing that conscription...
Emily Harris
Released
Born in Baltimore and raised in Clarendon Hills, Illinois, the daughter of an engineer, Emily Schwartz earned...
William Taylor Harris
Released
William Taylor “Bill” Harris was a Marine Corps veteran who studied urban education at Indiana University and...
David Hartsough
Released
David Hartsough was a Quaker organizer and longtime AFSC director of the Nonviolent Movement Building Program....
Bill Harvick
Bill Harvick was a striker involved in the 1939 Huntington Park Bulletin strike in California. Voice of the Fe...
Hamid Hayat
Hamid Hayat was imprisoned in the Lodi material-support and false-statements prosecution. His conviction and s...
Leo Bazile
Released
Leo Bazile was a former chair of the Black Student Union at Stanford University. Authorities issued warrants f...
Dorothy Ray Healey
Released
Dorothy Ray Healey was the best-known Communist organizer in Southern California, a veteran of the 1930s farm-...
Robert Heard
Released
Robert Joe Heard was a Black Panther Party member and associate of Huey P. Newton. Deputies arrested Heard, Ne...
Patty Hearst
Released
Patricia Campbell Hearst, granddaughter of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, was kidnapped from her B...
William “Bill” Heikkila
Released
William “Bill” Heikkila was a Finnish-born San Francisco draftsman brought to the United States as an infant....
Beverly Henry
Beverly “Chopper” Henry was a prisoner and peer educator at Central California Women’s Facility. Sinister Wisd...
Larry Henson
Released
Larry Henson was a Black Panther Party member arrested outside Oakland’s Lamp Post Bar and Restaurant on Decem...
Bessie Herman
Released
Bessie Herman was arrested and clubbed while leading a 1930 Oakland City Hall demonstration against police bru...
Eduardo Herrera
Released
Eduardo Herrera was a Mexican agricultural worker who had first been held for deportation before being sent to...
Serena Hertel
Released
Serena Hertel, 25, is an activist from California who was among the first five people arrested at the Stop Cop...
David Hilliard
Released
Chief of Staff of the Black Panther Party during its peak years. Hilliard was prosecuted under federal law for...

Institutions in California

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

San Quentin State PrisonSan Quentin, California
171 cases
Federal Bureau of Prisons
60 cases
Sharp Park Detention CampSharp Park, California
33 cases
Presidio StockadeSan Francisco, California
27 cases
Los Angeles County JailLos Angeles, California
26 cases
Folsom State PrisonFolsom, California
22 cases
San Quentin Rehabilitation CenterSan Quentin, California
16 cases
San Diego County JailSan Diego, California
13 cases