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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.
Antonio da Costa
Released
Antonio da Costa was one of three Portuguese mill workers and A Luta anarchist editors arrested at Fall River....
Frances Crowe
Released
Frances Crowe was an American Quaker, longtime Western Massachusetts peace and anti-nuclear-power organizer, a...
Charles G. Davis
Released
Charles G. Davis was a Massachusetts abolitionist attorney and Boston Vigilance Committee member, prosecuted b...
Bobby Dellelo
Released
Massachusetts prisoner-organizer and chapter president of the National Prisoners Reform Association (NPRA) at...
Lawrence Dennis
Released
Lawrence Dennis was a former American diplomat, financial commentator, and author who advocated an American fo...
Pat Devine
Released
Pat Devine was born in Motherwell, Scotland, in 1898 and became a Communist and trade-union organizer. After e...
Julia Dupuis
Awaiting Trial
Julia Dupuis was arrested in Cartersville, Georgia, on April 28, 2023 with Caroline “Charley” Tennenbaum and A...
Joseph Ettor
Released
Joseph Ettor was an Italian-American IWW organizer who, with Arturo Giovannitti, led the 1912 Bread and Roses...
Tess Ewing
Released
Tess Ewing was a Boston school-bus driver and member of the United Steelworkers (USWA) who was jailed for cont...
Stephen S. Foster
Released
Stephen S. Foster was a radical abolitionist and nonresistant — a "come-outer" who repeatedly rose in New Engl...
Wendell Furry
Released
Wendell Furry was a Harvard University physicist cited for contempt of Congress after refusing, on constitutio...
Luigi Galleani
Released
Luigi Galleani was the leading insurrectionary anarchist theorist among Italian immigrants in early 20th-centu...
William Lloyd Garrison
Released
William Lloyd Garrison was the foremost American abolitionist — founder of the newspaper The Liberator and a l...
William "Lefty" Gilday
Released
William “Lefty” Gilday was an anti-war activist who died as an incarcerated elder for his role in revolutionar...
Arturo Giovannitti
Released
Arturo Giovannitti was an Italian-American radical poet, editor of Il Proletario, and IWW organizer who co-led...
Marty Gottesfeld
Released
Marty Gottesfeld (sometimes styled “Martin Gottesfeld”) is an American activist and computer engineer known fo...
Frank "Parky" Grace
Released
Frank "Parky" Grace was a New Bedford Panther organizer and Vietnam veteran. Convicted in the Marvin Morgan mu...
Philip Grosser
Released
Philip Grosser was born in Slavuta, Ukraine 1890; established anarchist activist in Boston by 1917; among the...
Anna Gyorgy
Released
Montague Farm activist who in 1974 helped organize the Alternative Energy Coalition in Montague, Mass., and in...
Maurice Hyman Halperin
In Exile
Maurice Hyman Halperin was a scholar, former State Department and Office of Strategic Services official, and B...
Edward Hasbrouck
Released
Born Jan. 11, 1960 in Cambridge, MA, refused to register in 1980, returned to Massachusetts, and was selected...
Lewis Hayden
Released
Lewis Hayden was a Black abolitionist, former enslaved person, Boston Vigilance Committee leader, and Undergro...
Ezra Heywood
Released
Ezra Heywood was an American anarchist, abolitionist and early suffragist who advocated for equal rights for w...
Gary C. Hicks
Released
Gary C. Hicks was a CNVA antiwar demonstrator jailed following the March 1966 Boston Army Base protest.
Histo...
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