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Illinois

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 Illinois.

718Documented
6In custody
382Released

Eras of repression in Illinois

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

1920s 169 1930s 134 1960s 70 1910s 69 2020s 64 1970s 61

Documented cases

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

Christian Frazee
In Custody
Christian Frazee, age 25, of Lombard IL, was arrested June 1, 2020 near the Lombard Municipal Complex and char...
Larry Hoover
In Custody
Larry Hoover's federal sentence in United States v. Hoover, 1:95-cr508, was commuted to time served on May 28,...
Abdullah Malik Ka’bah
In Custody
Abdullah Malik Ka’bah, born Jeff Fort on February 20, 1947 in Aberdeen, Mississippi, moved with his family to...
Elias Rodriguez
In Custody
Chicago resident charged in the May 21, 2025 shooting deaths of Israeli Embassy staff Yaron Lischinsky and Sar...
Harry Haywood
Harry Haywood was a Communist speaker at Chicago’s Hands Off Ethiopia anti-war demonstration on August 31, 193...
Ortez Alderson
Ortez Alderson was a Black gay-liberation and anti-Vietnam War activist. A 2006 historical account identifies...
Larry Allen Abshier
In Exile
Larry Allen Abshier was a U.S. Army private stationed in South Korea who left his post and crossed the demilit...
Kat Abughazaleh
Released
Journalist, media analyst, and Democratic political candidate. Federally charged along with five co-defendants...
John Adams (Hillsboro prisoner)
Released
John Adams was one of the unemployed demonstrators detained at Hillsboro, Illinois in1934. A June27 letter by...
Marcello Africano
Marcello Africano is a U.S. citizen detained by federal immigration agents in Evanston on October 31, 2025 aft...
Eqbal Ahmad
Released
Eqbal Ahmad was a Pakistani-American political scientist born in Bihar, partition refugee, Princeton PhD 1967....
Brent Dow Allinson
Released
Brent Dow Allinson was charged with desertion. Sentenced to fifteen-to-twenty-five years (reduced to four), he...
Olin B. Anderson
Released
Olin B. Anderson was a press agent for the IWW from Kalispell, Montana. Olin B. Anderson was convicted at the...
George Andreytchine
Released
George Andreytchine was a Bulgarian-born IWW organizer and editor active in the Minnesota Mesabi Range iron st...
Catherine Antonelli
Catherine Antonelli was arrested in Chicago during the August2024 Democratic National Convention protest perio...
Adolfo Matos Antongiorgi
Released
Adolfo Matos Antongiorgi was born September 18, 1950 in Lajas, Puerto Rico. He moved to New York at 15 and lat...
Enaam M. Arnaout
Released
Enaam M. Arnaout, an Illinois man believed to have had connections to Osama bin Laden, ran a charity that the...
Charles Ashleigh
Released
Charles Ashleigh was an English-born IWW poet, journalist, and orator who delivered the eulogy at the 1916 fun...
Bill Ayers
Released
Founder and central organizer of the Weather Underground Organization who went underground in 1970 after the G...
Erich Becker
Released
Erich Becker was a Chicago shopkeeper who entered the United States in April 1928. He was arrested on June 11,...
Buddy Bell
Released
Buddy R. Bell is a Voices for Creative Nonviolence organizer who has been arrested repeatedly for civil disobe...
Harold Keith Bell
Released
Harold Keith Bell survived the December 4, 1969 Chicago raid that killed Fred Hampton and Mark Clark and was a...
Brent Betterly
Released
Brent Betterly was one of the "NATO 3," arrested before the 2012 Chicago NATO summit and acquitted of terroris...
Shamar Betts
Released
Facebook flyer that incited the May 31 2020 Champaign mall riot; federal Anti-Riot Act. Sentence: 48 months fe...

Institutions in Illinois

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

Cook County JailChicago, Illinois
58 cases
Chicago police lockupChicago, Illinois
9 cases
MCC ChicagoChicago , Illinois
8 cases
Woodstock Jail (McHenry County)
7 cases
Southern Illinois Penitentiary, ChesterChester, Illinois
6 cases
FCI Pekin Satellite CampPekin, Illinois
5 cases
USP MarionMarion, Illinois
5 cases
FCI PekinPekin, Illinois
4 cases