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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.

1,527Documented
39In custody
899Released
17Awaiting trial

Eras of repression in California

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

1930s 354 1970s 205 1960s 199 1910s 174 2020s 131 1980s 90

Documented cases

1,527 entries in the census — every one stays in the record, whether the case is open or closed.

R
Richard Johnson (West Oakland)
The paper identifies Luther Oldham, twenty-one, and Richard Johnson, nineteen, as arrested in West Oakland aft...
G
Georg K. P. Jokisch
Georg K. P. Jokisch is individually listed in the INS civilian custody roster as confined at Sharp Park Detent...
W
William Joozdeff
Released
William Joozdeff was an IWW member from Sacramento. William Joozdeff received a four-year prison sentence, whi...
R
Robert Charles Jordan Jr.
Robert Charles Jordan Jr. was a Soledad prisoner who brought a successful civil-rights challenge to degrading...
J
John Juhn
Released
John Juhn was a Korean independence activist, printer, editor, and co-owner of the Los Angeles newspaper Korea...
L
Larry Justice
Released
Larry Justice was already imprisoned in California by 1967 on sentences for grand auto theft and assault with...
H
Hellmut Kafka
Hellmut Kafka is individually listed in the INS civilian custody roster as confined at Sharp Park Detention Ca...
A
Akinsanya Kambon
Released
Akinsanya Kambon, born Mark Teemer, is a Sacramento artist, Vietnam veteran and former Black Panther lieutenan...
S
Sima Kaspin
Page 3's November 11 Los Angeles report individually names Sima Kaspin among those arrested in the preceding w...
G
Goldie Katz
Released
Goldie Katz was a Los Angeles garment-strike leader. Police arrested her with other strike organizers in Febru...
A
Alvina Keeler
Alvina Keeler defended herself in the prosecution of twenty-two Adohr Dairy milk-strike pickets in Los Angeles...
E
Ellen Kees
New Dawn Party member identified in Dragon’s Richmond explosives prosecution report. The defendants pleaded gu...
E
Elise Saramarielle Kelder
Released
Elise Saramarielle Kelder, 28, Riverside Historic Courthouse green-handprint defendant, July 30 2022.
T
Tom Kellog
Released
Tom Kellog appears in the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors’1969 current-prisoner lists of draft a...
R
Robert Kendrick
Released
Robert “Sharief” Kendrick was identified by The Black Panther as a Black Panther Party member whom Los Angeles...
K
Kenmotsu
Released
Kenmotsu was a Japanese worker arrested for speaking at a San Francisco demonstration on December 14, 1929. Th...
E
Edmund Kibler
Edmund Kibler is individually listed in the INS civilian custody roster as confined at Sharp Park Detention Ca...
D
Daniel King (Oakland youth)
Daniel King was identified as a sixteen-year-old Black student in testimony reproduced in the defense appeal f...
K
Keith King
Released
Keith King was an East Palo Alto Black Liberation Front member. Pamoja Venceremos reported his May 4, 1971 arr...
R
Renard King
Released
Renard King was jailed with his brother Keith in a 1971 East Palo Alto case supported by the Black Liberation...
G
George Kiosz
Released
George Kiosz was a Los Angeles labor activist prosecuted in the unemployment-demonstration cases of 1930. He w...
E
E. E. Kirk
E. E. Kirk was a San Diego socialist lawyer who defended participants in the 1912 free speech fight and was hi...
F
Fred Kirkwood
Released
Fred Kirkwood was a defendant in the Sacramento criminal-syndicalism prosecution arising from the organizing c...
L
Laurence Allen Kisinger
Laurence Allen Kisinger was arrested at a Marin County roadblock on February17,1976 following alleged gunfire...

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
Metropolitan Detention Center, Los AngelesLos Angeles, California
14 cases