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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.

Adolph Frank Germer
Released
Adolph Frank Germer was born in Welan, East Prussia; emigrated 1888 and entered Illinois coal mines at age ele...
Carl Gerulla
Car Gerulla of Nokomis, Illinois, was individually named among ten leaders arrested June 3, 1934 during the Mo...
Albert Goldman
Released
Albert Goldman was a Belarusian-Jewish-born Chicago lawyer who served as Leon Trotsky's American attorney and...
Michael Gomez
Released
Michael Gomez, of Aurora, Illinois, reported as nineteen at his arrest, was the youngest of the three men fede...
Roy M. Goodwin
Released
Roy M. Goodwin was an American Railway Union director and Eugene V. Debs co-defendant in the federal contempt...
Joseph J. Gordon
Released
Joseph J. Gordon was from Chicago, Illinois. Joseph J. Gordon was convicted at the mass IWW trial in Chicago,...
Lillian Greenberg
Released
Lillian Greenberg was a Chicago garment-strike picket associated with the International Ladies’ Garment Worker...
Jean Gump
Released
Jean Gump was a long-time Catholic peace and civil-rights activist who became especially focused on nuclear we...
Joe Gump
Released
Joe Gump was a Chicago-area Catholic peace activist who—alongside his family—participated in civil-rights work...
Luis Gutiérrez
Released
Luis Gutiérrez, then a Democratic U.S. representative from Illinois, was arrested in late April 2001 for tresp...
Carl Haessler
Released
Carl Haessler was a Rhodes Scholar and University of Illinois philosophy professor who joined the Socialist Pa...
Edward Hamilton
Released
Edward Hamilton was from Chicago, Illinois. Edward Hamilton was convicted at the mass IWW trial in Chicago, se...
Jason Hammond
Released
Jason Hammond is an antifascist who was accused of being connected to an anti-white supremacist action at a lo...
Jeremy Hammond
Released
Jeremy Hammond, also known by his online moniker sup_g, is an American anarchist activist and former computer...
Moses Harman
Released
Moses Harman was a free-thought and individualist-anarchist editor who published Lucifer, the Light-Bearer, a...
Merrill Harvey
Released
Merrill Harvey was an Illinois Black Panther Party member arrested in Chicago on April 11, 1969, in a federal...
Clarence Hathaway
Released
Clarence Hathaway was a communist leader who would later edit the Daily Worker. Clarence Hathaway was arrested...
Hippolyte Havel
Released
Hippolyte Havel was an anarchist held in the post-assassination anarchist roundup of September 1901. No prosec...
Tom Hayden
Released
Tom Hayden was a founder of Students for a Democratic Society and the principal author of its 1962 Port Huron...
Steve Hindi
Released
Steve Hindi is an anti-hunting and animal-rights activist (founder of SHARK, Showing Animals Respect and Kindn...
Abbie Hoffman
Released
Abbie Hoffman was a co-founder of the Youth International Party ("Yippies") and one of the most flamboyant fig...
Edward Hoffmans
Released
Edward Charles Hoffmans — the surname really does end in s — was 31 at the time of the Chicago 15 action, livi...
James Hogan
James Hogan was a railroad worker and American Railway Union director imprisoned at Woodstock, Illinois, in th...
John Holland
John Holland of Nokomis, Illinois, was individually named among ten leaders arrested June 3, 1934 during the M...

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