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Michigan
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 Michigan.
149Documented
0In custody
142Released
Eras of repression in Michigan
Where Michigan’s entries fall across the census’s historical eras.
1910s 33
1950s 23
1970s 18
1930s 16
2020s 14
2010s 12
Documented cases
149 entries in the census — every one stays in the record, whether the case is open or closed.
Ahlam Mohsen
Released
On August 12, 2010, anti-war activists Ahlam Mohsen and Max Kantar threw cherry pies at U.S. Senator Carl Levi...
Frank Monparler
Released
Frank Monparler, of Detroit, Michigan, began serving a prison sentence on July 17, 1918.
Joseph E. Mulligan
Released
A Jesuit seminarian (Society of Jesus) at the time, age 25, Mulligan was one of the fifteen who on May 25, 196...
Emily Murphy
Released
Emily Murphy, 37, is an activist from Grosse Ile, Michigan. On January 21, 2023, she was arrested during a pro...
Howard Eugene Nall
Released
Howard Nall is a protestor who, while attending a Black Lives Matter protest in Grand Rapids, was arrested and...
Rev. Edward Pinkney
Released
Rev. Edward Pinkney is the founder of Black Autonomy Network Community Organization and a leader in the strugg...
George Pirinsky
Released
George Pirinsky arrived in America from Bulgaria in 1923 with little money or English, and within a few years...
Pun Plamondon
Released
Lawrence Robert "Pun" Plamondon, of Ottawa/Odawa descent, co-founded the White Panther Party with John Sinclai...
Ardeth Platte
Released
Sister Ardeth Platte OP was a Dominican nun of the Grand Rapids Dominicans whose six decades of social-justice...
William Powell
Released
William Powell, of Detroit, Michigan, received a prison sentence of twenty years, which was commuted to two ye...
Nada Nadim Prouty
Released
Nada Nadim Prouty was a former Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation employee whose...
Siwatu-Salama Ra
Released
Siwatu-Salama Ra is an environmental and racial justice activist who served as director of East Michigan Envir...
Ahmad Rahman
Released
Ahmad A. Rahman (also known earlier in life as Ron Irwin) became associated with Black liberation-era organizi...
Ronald Raymond
Riot + attempted arson (burning mannequin into a police car), Grand Rapids May 30 2020. Sentence: 1 year Kent...
Conrad Rockenhaus
Released
U.S. Air Force veteran, longtime Tor relay and exit-node operator, and federal prisoner currently held at FCI...
John Sinclair
Released
John Sinclair was a Michigan-based poet, music organizer, and radical activist who fused counterculture politi...
Chase Vladamir Spencer
Released
Chase Spencer was charged in connection with property destruction during protests in downtown Grand Rapids, Mi...
Anthony J. Stopa
Released
Anthony J. Stopa, from Detroit, Michigan, was convicted for saying "young men are fools if they join the Army...
Henry Sweet
Released
Younger brother of Detroit physician Ossian Sweet and the family member who fired the shot that killed a white...
Ossian Sweet
Released
Black physician who, in September 1925, moved his family into a previously all-white Detroit neighborhood. The...
Michael Sykes
Released
Michael Sykes is an environmentalist anarchist from Lambertville, MI. At age 17, he was sentenced as an adult...
Ian Wallace
Released
Ian Wallace, age 27, was convicted in 2001 of attempting to cause damage in excess of $1,000 to United States...
Monica Washington-Padula
Released
Monica Washington-Padula is an Afro-Indigenous (Ojibwe) activist and human rights advocate based in Kalamazoo,...
Colin Weger
Released
Colin Weger is one of four pro-Palestine activists arrested by the FBI in June 2026 in connection with a prote...
Institutions in Michigan
Prisons, jails, and detention centers in Michigan that appear in the census’s case files.
Theodore Levin United States CourthouseDetroit, Michigan
4 cases
FCI MilanMilan, Michigan
3 cases
Bay County JailBay City, Michigan
3 cases
Wayne County Jail
3 cases
Marquette State PrisonMarquette, Michigan
2 cases
Detroit RRMMilan, Michigan
1 case
Federal Detention Center, DetroitDetroit, Michigan
1 case
Federal Correctional Institution, MilanMilan, Michigan
1 case