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New York
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 New York.
867Documented
24In custody
787Released
2Awaiting trial
Eras of repression in New York
Where New York’s entries fall across the census’s historical eras.
1950s 137
1910s 137
1970s 87
1960s 87
1980s 81
1930s 65
Documented cases
867 entries in the census — every one stays in the record, whether the case is open or closed.
J
Jacob Jackson
Released
Jacob Jackson was a Black man in New York City convicted on a police counter-charge of assaulting an officer a...
W
William Oral James
Released
William Oral James was a conscientious objector from New York imprisoned during World War I. Court-martialed f...
A
Ayman Jarwan
Released
Ayman Jarwan is a Jordanian citizen who was born in Saudi Arabia and now resides in Syracuse, New York He was...
L
Lionel Jean-Baptiste
Released
A New York 8+ grand-jury resister, Lionel Jean-Baptiste spent months in federal custody after refusing to test...
A
Arnold Johnson
Released
Arnold Johnson was the Communist Party USAs longtime legislative director and its principal liaison with sympa...
A
Augustus J. Johnson
Released
Augustus J. Johnson was a New York City subway motorman and an official of the Motormen's Benevolent Associati...
J
John Earl Johnson
Released
John Earl Johnson, 26, was found with CDs containing terrorism information / explosive-making instructions and...
R
Rickey Johnson
Released
Rickey Johnson, age 47, of New York, sent threatening messages on January 30, 2021 to U.S. Senator Joe Manchin...
J
Jeffrey Carl Jones
Released
Born in Philadelphia; SDS New York regional organizer and national interim committee member. June 1969 signer...
W
William Joscelyn
Released
William Joscelyn — the surname is also spelled Jocelyn — was a Delaware County, New York Anti-Renter imprisone...
L
Leon Josephson
Released
Leon Josephson was a New York attorney and Communist Party activist — an anti-fascist who in the 1930s had bee...
E
Elizabeth Just
Released
Elizabeth Just was a 20-year-old New York University student sentenced to 30 days in the Women's House of Dete...
S
Shango Bahati Kakawana
Released
Shango Bahati Kakawana (Bernard Stroble) was one of the Attica Brothers, indicted on murder and kidnapping cha...
M
Minnie Kalnin
Released
Minnie Kalnin, a Communist Party member, served a sentence in the New York Women's Prison at Auburn and was la...
J
Joseph P. Kamp
Released
Joseph P. Kamp was a right-wing pamphleteer who ran the Constitutional Educational League, a militantly anti-c...
H
Herman D. Kaplan
Released
Herman D. Kaplan was a conscientious objector from New York imprisoned during World War I. Court-martialed for...
N
Nathan Kaplan
Released
Nathan Kaplan was one of the workers arrested in the July 3, 1928 Wall Street demonstration against U.S. inter...
A
Abayama Katara
Released
Abayama Katara was the youngest of the New York Panther 21 defendants, a teenager at the time of his April 2,...
J
Julius Katz
Released
Julius Katz was a conscientious objector from New York imprisoned during World War I. Court-martialed for refu...
S
Sander Katz
Released
Sander Katz was a pacifist and anarchist associated with the postwar libertarian magazine Alternative (publish...
Y
Yvette Kelley
Released
Black liberation activist charged as a New York 8+ defendant in the October 17-18, 1984 federal RICO indictmen...
J
James Kelly
Released
James Kelly was a Canadian resident detained in the United States in proceedings involving assistance to Irish...
J
John Kelly
Released
John Kelly was a conscientious objector from New York imprisoned during World War I. Court-martialed for refus...
D
Dick Keough
Released
Dick Keough painted anti-Iraq-war messages on the Syracuse federal building during Operation Desert Fox (Decem...
Institutions in New York
Prisons, jails, and detention centers in New York that appear in the census’s case files.
Ellis Island Immigration StationNew York, New York
184 cases
Manhattan House of Detention (the Tombs)New York, New York
17 cases
Sing Sing Correctional FacilityOssining, New York
14 cases
Attica Correctional FacilityAttica, New York
13 cases
Metropolitan Correctional CenterNew York, New York
11 cases
MDC BrooklynBrooklyn, New York
9 cases
Metropolitan Correctional Center, New YorkNew York, New York
9 cases
Blackwell's Island PenitentiaryNew York, New York
8 cases