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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.
859Documented
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
859 entries in the census — every one stays in the record, whether the case is open or closed.
Walter Augustus Bowe
Released
Walter Augustus Bowe was a member of the Black Liberation Front arrested in New York on February 16, 1965, wit...
Lyman R. Bradley
Released
Lyman R. Bradley, chairman of the German department at New York University and a treasurer of the JAFRC was on...
Benjamin Breger
Released
Benjamin Breger was a conscientious objector from New York imprisoned during World War I. Court-martialed for...
William Breidert
Released
William Breidert was a conscientious objector from New York imprisoned during World War I. Court-martialed for...
John Brown
John Brown was an American abolitionist whose conviction that slavery could only be ended by armed force place...
Vincent Buccafori
Released
Vincent Buccafori was an Italian immigrant shoe-worker in Brooklyn, New York who in 1911 killed his foreman in...
Marilyn Buck
Released
Marilyn Buck was a Texas-born, white anti-imperialist revolutionary, the only white member of the Black Libera...
Safiya Bukhari
Released
Safiya Bukhari, born Bernice Jones in The Bronx in 1950, was a member of the New York chapter of the Black Pan...
Daniel Burns
Released
Daniel Burns was one of the St. Patrick's Four — Catholic Worker activists Peter DeMott, Teresa Grady, Clare G...
Ethel Byrne
Released
Ethel Byrne was a registered nurse and one of the three principal operators of the Brownsville birth-control c...
Harold I. Cammer
Released
Harold I. Cammer was a New York labor attorney held in contempt of court for his conduct in defending the fur-...
David Campbell
Released
David Campbell is being unjustly imprisoned for events that unfolded at the protest of a New York City alt-rig...
Amber Canavan
Released
Amber Canavan is an animal-rights activist and Animal Protection and Rescue League volunteer. She investigated...
Angelo Cappelo
Released
Angelo Cappelo was one of the Buffalo, New York workers jailed in 1930 for demanding "work or wages" in the un...
Elaine Carberry
Released
Elaine Carberry, 36, with Corey Smith set fire to an NYPD Homeless Outreach van on July 15, 2020 in NYC. Charg...
Edward S. Carey
Released
Edward S. Carey, from New York, New York, was convicted at the mass IWW trial in Sacramento and sentenced to f...
Stokely Carmichael
Released
Stokely Carmichael (later Kwame Ture) was a Trinidadian-American civil rights organizer who became chairman of...
Arthur Caron
Released
Arthur Caron was a French-Canadian-born anarchist and member of the Industrial Workers of the World. Born on D...
Donato Carrillo
Released
Donato Carrillo, born in Sant'Agata di Puglia, Foggia, Italy (his Italian political-police file names his pare...
Ruth Carter
Released
Black liberation activist charged as a New York 8+ defendant in the October 17-18, 1984 federal RICO indictmen...
George Blake Charney
Released
George Blake Charney was a New York labor lawyer and a leading Communist Party USA figure in the postwar perio...
Coltrane Chimurenga
Released
Black liberation organizer, December 12th Movement field marshal, and the federal government's named 'ringlead...
Marjorie Chodorov
Released
Marjorie Chodorov was an executive-board member of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee (JAFRC), which aid...
Judith Clark
Released
Judith Alice Clark was a former Weather Underground organizer and one of the four May 19th Communist Organizat...
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