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Massachusetts
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 Massachusetts.
351Documented
1In custody
196Released
3Awaiting trial
Eras of repression in Massachusetts
Where Massachusetts’s entries fall across the census’s historical eras.
1930s 102
1920s 38
1970s 30
1980s 27
1800s 27
1910s 24
Recent dashboard entries from Massachusetts
The newest published events and reporting located in Massachusetts, updated automatically from the live dashboard.
Prosecution
Judge accused of enabling immigrant to escape ICE gets a rare public reprimand
Arrest
Five arrested during climate protest that blocked traffic in Copley Square
Arrest
Climate protestors block rush hour traffic in downtown Boston
Protest
Protesters demand Charles River Laboratories end beagle testing at its downtown Worcester lab
Arrest
Two arrested plastering anti-ICE posters on a Citizens Bank branch in Boston, part of a campaign over its financing of ICE detention operators
Protest
11 arrested in civil disobedience at Burlington ICE facility
Protest
11 arrested after protesting outside Burlington ICE facility
Protest
Eleven activists arrested trying to deliver care packages to detainees at the Burlington ICE facility
Documented cases
351 entries in the census — every one stays in the record, whether the case is open or closed.
Fergie Chambers
In Custody
James Cox “Fergie” Chambers Jr. is an American communist activist and donor to Palestinian humanitarian and le...
Siham Byah
Released
Siham Byah is a Moroccan activist associated with Occupy Boston and immigrant-rights organizing. ICE detained...
Eduardo Samaniego
Released
Eduardo Samaniego is an immigrant-rights organizer associated with the Pioneer Valley Workers Center. He was h...
Kaveh L. Afrasiabi
Released
Kaveh Lotfollah Afrasiabi, born in 1958, is an Iranian American political scientist and author based in Massac...
Peter Almeida
Released
Peter Almeida remained jailed after the July 1970 New Bedford Panther raid.
Sherrie André
Released
Sherrie André was one of four FANG Collective activists arrested after chaining themselves to the gates and us...
Frank Augusto
Released
Frank Augusto was a 62-year-old striker in the 1928 New Bedford, Massachusetts textile strike. Frank Augusto w...
John Avila
Released
John Avila was from Lowell, Massachusetts. John Avila was convicted at the mass IWW trial in Chicago, sentence...
John J. Ballam
Released
John J. Ballam was listed in the National Civil Liberties Bureau's March 1919 compilation "War-Time Prosecutio...
John Ballam
The November 6 Lawrence dispatch on page 1 names TUUL national-board representative and United Front Rank and...
Edith Berkman
Released
Edith Berkman was a National Textile Workers Union organizer in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Immigration authoriti...
Fred Biedenkapp
Released
Fred Biedenkapp was a labor organizer associated with the Workers International Relief, the National Textile W...
Timothy Bilodeau
Released
Timothy Bilodeau is an activist from Massachusetts who was arrested on March 5, 2023 at the Atlanta Public Saf...
Noah Jos. Blair
Released
Noah Jos. Blair was a conscientious objector from Massachusetts imprisoned during World War I. Court-martialed...
Ella Reeve Bloor
Released
Ella Reeve Bloor was the tireless organizer whose career ran from the Socialist Party's founding through decad...
Stanley Bond
Released
Stanley Ray Bond was an Army veteran of the Vietnam War and radical who, while serving a prior robbery sentenc...
Albert Gallatin Browne Jr.
Released
Albert Gallatin Browne Jr. was a Salem-born abolitionist and Harvard law student arrested in Boston on May 26,...
Anthony Burns
Released
Anthony Burns was a Black man held in Boston federal custody under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 after escapi...
Alfred Buzzi
Released
Alfred Buzzi was a conscientious objector from Massachusetts imprisoned during World War I. Court-martialed fo...
Harry Canter
Released
Harry Canter (Harry J. Canter, also recorded as Harry Kantor) was prosecuted for criminal libel after carrying...
Joseph Caruso
Released
Joseph Caruso was an Italian immigrant textile worker in Lawrence, Massachusetts and a rank-and-file striker d...
Joseph M. Coldwell
Released
Joseph M. Coldwell was a socialist and labor organizer associated with Massachusetts and Rhode Island. His ant...
Betsy Corner
Released
Betsy Corner is a landscape architect, peace activist, and longtime war-tax resister from Colrain, Massachuset...
Joseph Cort
Released
Joseph Cort was a Massachusetts-born physician and research physiologist who had belonged to the Communist Par...
Institutions in Massachusetts
Prisons, jails, and detention centers in Massachusetts that appear in the census’s case files.
Fort WarrenBoston, Massachusetts
75 cases
Norfolk County Jail Dedham, Massachusetts
10 cases
Boston Court House
3 cases
Charlestown State PrisonBoston, Massachusetts
2 cases
Deer Island PrisonBoston, Massachusetts
2 cases
Boston JailBoston, Massachusetts
2 cases
Hampshire County Jail (Northampton)Northampton, Massachusetts
1 case
Salem, MA federal jailSalem, Massachusetts
1 case