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Pennsylvania

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 Pennsylvania.

836Documented
12In custody
544Released
4Awaiting trial

Eras of repression in Pennsylvania

Where Pennsylvania’s entries fall across the census’s historical eras.

1930s 257 1700s 79 1910s 76 1920s 72 1960s 69 1800s 59

Documented cases

836 entries in the census — every one stays in the record, whether the case is open or closed.

William Phillips Africa
William Phillips Africa was a member of MOVE, the Philadelphia-based Black liberation and back-to-nature group...
William Albertson
Released
William Albertson was a Communist Party organizer arrested in Michigan on August 17, 1951 and removed to Pitts...
George Allen
Released
George Allen, 31, of Pittsburgh, charged July 22, 2020 with civil disorder for damaging an occupied police veh...
Robert Anderson
Released
Robert Anderson was a Pennsylvania coal miner convicted of assault with intent to kill during a 1928 miners' s...
Andrew Augustyniak-Duncan
Released
On May 30, 2020 during ongoing protests after George Floyd's murder, Andrew Augustyniak-Duncan was part of a c...
Franklin Bache
Released
Franklin Bache was Benjamin Franklin Bache, grandson of Benjamin Franklin, and edited Philadelphia’s Aurora, t...
Linda Backiel
Released
Linda Backiel was a Philadelphia civil-rights and movement-defense attorney whose clients included Puerto Rica...
Brian Jordan Bartels
Released
Brian Jordan Bartels, 20, of Pittsburgh, attacked and vandalized a police car during the May 30, 2020 BLM prot...
Agnes Bauerlein
Released
Agnes Gertrude Bauerlein was a Dutch-born mother, grandmother, and lifelong social activist in Ambler and Phil...
Raekwon Dac Blankenship
Released
Raekwon Dac Blankenship, 24, of Pittsburgh, charged July 22, 2020 with damaging unmarked and marked police veh...
Lore-Elisabeth Blumenthal
Released
Lore-Elisabeth Blumenthal was arrested following the George Floyd protests in Philadelphia in May 2020. Author...
Phineas Bond
Released
Phineas Bond was among the Philadelphians seized in the September 1777 arrests and named in the exile records...
Sam Bonita
Released
Sam Bonita was the president of a progressive United Mine Workers local at Pittston in the Pennsylvania anthra...
Frank Borich
Released
Frank Borich was a Croatian-born coal miner and Communist labor leader who served as general secretary of the...
James Boyle
Released
James Boyle was convicted of the July 6, 1875 murder of Tamaqua borough policeman Benjamin F. Yost, and was on...
John Worth Braxton
Released
John Worth Braxton was a Quaker antiwar organizer associated with A Quaker Action Group and Philadelphia Resis...
John Brophy
Released
John Brophy was the reform miners' leader who had challenged John L. Lewis for the presidency of the United Mi...
Henry Brown
Released
Henry "Sha Sha" Brown was a member of the Black Liberation Army. Two weeks after the January 27, 1972 killing...
Steven Burke
Released
White anti-imperialist activist imprisoned at FCI Lewisburg in the 1980s on charges related to resistance and...
Anna Burlak
Released
Anna Burlak was a leader of the National Textile Workers Union and the Young Pioneers when she was arrested in...
Pierce Butler
Released
Pierce Butler was a wealthy Philadelphia landowner and grandson of the Founding Father of the same name — infa...
Alexander Campbell
Released
Alexander Campbell was a tavern-keeper. Alexander Campbell was convicted as an accessory in the 1875 murders o...
James Carroll
Released
James Carroll was a Tamaqua tavern-keeper. James Carroll was convicted as a conspirator in the July 1875 murde...
Harry M. Clave
Released
Harry M. Clave was a conscientious objector from Pennsylvania imprisoned during World War I. Court-martialed f...

Institutions in Pennsylvania

Prisons, jails, and detention centers in Pennsylvania that appear in the census’s case files.

Fort MifflinPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania
48 cases
Allegheny County WorkhouseBlawnox, Pennsylvania
34 cases
Walnut Street JailPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania
20 cases
Philadelphia GaolPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania
18 cases
United States Penitentiary, LewisburgLewisburg, Pennsylvania
14 cases
Butler County PrisonButler, Pennsylvania
11 cases
FCI AllenwoodWhite Deer, Pennsylvania
10 cases
Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas / SCI Pennsylvania state prisonsPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania
9 cases