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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.
793Documented
19In custody
706Released
9Awaiting trial
Eras of repression in California
Where California’s entries fall across the census’s historical eras.
1910s 164
1970s 123
1930s 97
1960s 85
2000s 72
1950s 66
Documented cases
793 entries in the census — every one stays in the record, whether the case is open or closed.
Andrew Fisher
Released
Andrew "Fish" Fisher, an Occupy San Diego organizer, was convicted under California Penal Code § 148(a)(1) of...
Zeph Fishlyn
Released
Zeph Fishlyn, age 52, of Oakland, Greenpeace 28 - September 2019 Houston Ship Channel bridge rappel.
Romaine Fitzgerald
Compton-born Black Panther who joined the Southern California Chapter of the BPP in early 1969 as a teenager a...
William Flanagan
Released
William Flanagan, an IWW member, received a one- to fourteen-year prison sentence, which he served in San Quen...
Flores Forbes
Released
Flores Forbes joined the Black Panther Party in San Diego as a teenager in 1968 and rose to assistant chief of...
Richard "Blackie" Ford
Released
IWW spokesman convicted of second-degree murder for the 1913 Wheatland Hop Riot near Wheatland, California — a...
Leonard Roy Frank
Released
Leonard Roy Frank was a writer and civil liberties activist who was involuntarily committed to the California...
F. Franklin
Released
F. Franklin, an IWW member, received a five-year sentence, which he served in San Quentin from March 1923 unti...
Ed Frey
Released
Ed Fey was an attorney who in 2010 slept on the steps outside the Santa Cruz City Hall in protest of a recent...
Stephen Funk
Released
Lance Corporal Stephen Funk was the first U.S. service member to publicly refuse to participate in the Iraq Wa...
Inez García
Released
Inez García was a young Latina woman who became a landmark figure in the women's self-defense movement after s...
Keith Gartenlaub
Released
Keith Gartenlaub was a senior engineer with Boeing who was targeted by the FBI in a Chinese espionage investig...
David Lance Goines
Released
David Lance Goines was a Berkeley printer, artist and Free Speech Movement participant. He printed movement li...
John Golden
Released
John Golden, an IWW member from Eureka, received a one- to fourteen-year prison sentence, which he served in S...
Robert Goldstein
Released
Robert Goldstein, of Los Angeles, California, was sentenced to ten years in prison. He served in McNeil Island...
Ralph Goodwin
In Exile
Ralph Goodwin was a member of the Republic of New Afrika who, with Charlie Hill and Michael Finney, fled to Cu...
Ernest Graham
Released
One of the 'San Quentin Two,' convicted along with Eugene Allen of killing a guard at the Deuel Vocational Ins...
John Grave
Released
John Grave, a laborer from Sacramento, California, was convicted at the mass IWW trial in Sacramento and sente...
Harry Gray
Released
Harry Gray, a leader of the Agricultural Workers Industrial Union in Sacramento, California, was convicted at...
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...
Sharla Hampton
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...
Institutions in California
Prisons, jails, and detention centers in California that appear in the census’s case files.
San Quentin State PrisonSan Quentin, California
150 cases
Federal Bureau of Prisons
59 cases
San Quentin Rehabilitation CenterSan Quentin, California
23 cases
Presidio StockadeSan Francisco, California
22 cases
Los Angeles County JailLos Angeles, California
21 cases
Metropolitan Detention Center, Los AngelesLos Angeles, California
14 cases
San Francisco County JailSan Francisco, California
13 cases
Alameda County JailOakland, California
10 cases