Learn More → State by State
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.
Bob Lederer
Released
Bob Lederer is a New York writer, editor and longtime anti-imperialist and AIDS activist, a member of the New...
Ruth Leider
Released
Ruth Leider was an executive-board member of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee (JAFRC), which aided ref...
Clara Lemlich
Released
Clara Lemlich was a labor organizer who helped spark the 1909-1910 New York shirtwaist strike, known as the Up...
Otto Lenhart
Released
Otto Lenhart was one of the New York fur workers convicted with Ben Gold in the 1927 Mineola trial — the Long...
Joseph Leston
Released
Joseph Leston, a seaman and delegation member, given thirty days, was one of the New York unemployed delegatio...
Samuel Lipman
Released
Samuel Lipman 21 at the time of his arrest; the lone Marxist socialist (rather than anarchist) among the Abram...
Vladimir Lossieff
Released
Vladimir Lossieff, an editor from New York, New York, was convicted at the mass IWW trial in Chicago, sentence...
Mattia Luini
Released
Mattia Luini is a dual Italian-American citizen from New York who was arrested on March 5, 2023 at the Atlanta...
Alexander H. Macmillan
Released
Alexander H. Macmillan Canadian-born senior Watch Tower official; one of eight defendants indicted May 7, 1918...
Manuel Magaña
Released
Manuel Magaña was an executive-board member of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee (JAFRC), which aided r...
Andy Mager
Released
Of Syracuse, NY, was indicted in 1984 and sentenced Feb. 4, 1985 in federal court in Syracuse to 6 months in p...
Judah Leon Magnes
Released
Reform rabbi of Temple Emanu-El (New York City) and chair of the executive committee of the People's Council o...
Norman Mailer
Released
Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist arrested at the October 21, 1967 March on the Pentagon for crossing an MP line...
Abdul Majid
Abdul Majid is a native of Queens New York and has been imprisoned for two decades. In the 1960s, he worked in...
Maurice Malkin
Released
Maurice Malkin, a founding member of the American communist movement and a furriers' union militant, was convi...
George Marshall
Released
George Marshall was a civil-liberties activist, economist and conservationist — later a president of the Sierr...
Robert J. Martin
Released
Robert J. Martin began serving a prison sentence on June 21, 1918. Amember of the IBSA, Martin was convicted i...
Carl Marzani
Released
Carl Aldo Marzani was an Italian-American immigrant radical, OSS veteran, and former State Department employee...
Connie Matthews
In Exile
Connie Matthews was a Danish-Jamaican activist who served as the Black Panther Party's International Coordinat...
Colinford Mattis
Released
Colinford Mattis, 32, attorney, with Urooj Rahman attempted to use Molotov cocktails to damage NYPD vehicles d...
Edward McGowan
Released
Jesuit (13 years), age 36 at indictment, resident of Woodstock College and a Bronx native considered an expert...
Olive McKeon
Released
Olive McKeon was an Irish-American activist jailed for refusing a federal grand jury demand during an investig...
Cecily McMillan
Released
Cecily McMillan emerged as a prominent figure associated with Occupy Wall Street after her 2012 arrest during...
David McReynolds
Released
David McReynolds, editor of the pacifist magazine Liberation and later a leading figure in the War Resisters L...
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