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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.

431Documented
6In custody
377Released
2Awaiting trial

Eras of repression in Pennsylvania

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

1700s 77 1910s 73 1930s 68 2020s 41 1950s 36 1970s 30

Documented cases

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

D
David Davis
Released
David Davis was another of the Philadelphia Nine defendants in the 1950s Smith Act prosecution; legal records...
D
Dylan Davis
Released
Dylan Davis was arrested in connection with Lancaster’s September 2020 racial-justice protest and spent Septem...
P
Paul Davis
Released
Paul Davis, identified in contemporary reports as an ACT UP/Philadelphia leader, was arrested during the Augus...
T
Tony De Bernardini
Released
Tony De Bernardini, a union coal miner at Cheswick, Pennsylvania, was beaten so badly by state police in the 2...
H
Hugh Dempsey
Released
Knights of Labor District Master Workman convicted in 1892 of conspiracy to poison strikebreakers at the Homes...
D
David D. Derstine
Released
David D. Derstine was a Mennonite conscientious objector from Pennsylvania imprisoned during World War I. Cour...
P
Phillip Desch
Phillip Desch was a Pennsylvania German participant in Fries’s Rebellion who was jailed for resisting the 1798...
B
Bernard Deutch
Released
Bernard Deutch was a University of Pennsylvania student convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing, on Fir...
B
Bernhard Deutch
Released
Bernhard Deutch, a former University of Pennsylvania student, was one of eight people whose contempt-of-Congre...
W
William Diehl
Released
William Diehl was listed on the ILD's 1932 winter-relief roster of Western Pennsylvania class-war prisoners —...
C
Craig Michael Digangi
Released
Craig Michael Digangi, 27, of Erie, PA was sentenced to 16-36 months in state prison after pleading guilty to...
J
James Dolsen
Released
James Dolsen was an elderly Pittsburgh Communist and journalist tried under the Pennsylvania sedition law and...
J
John Donahue
John “Yellow Jack” Donahue was convicted of the December 2, 1871 murder of mine boss Morgan Powell at Summit H...
D
Dennis Donnelly
Dennis Donnelly was convicted in the September 1875 murders of mine boss Thomas Sanger and miner William Uren...
C
Consuewella Dotson Africa
Released
MOVE 9 member convicted in the August 8, 1978 Powelton Village confrontation that killed Philadelphia police o...
B
Barrows Dunham
Released
Barrows Dunham was chairman of Temple University's philosophy department who was suspended and indicted for co...
C
Charles Eddy
Released
Charles Eddy, a Philadelphia Quaker merchant, was one of the "Virginia Exiles" — the roughly twenty prominent...
T
Thomas Todd Edwards
Released
Thomas Todd Edwards was a conscientious objector from Pennsylvania imprisoned during World War I. Court-martia...
J
James Egan
Released
James Egan was secretary of the Communist-led Steel and Metal Workers Industrial Union. After the 1933–34 stru...
J
Jogues Egan
Released
Sister Jogues Egan was a Roman Catholic nun and educator jailed for civil contempt in 1971 for refusing to tes...
H
Harry Fadel
Released
Harry Fadel appears in the National Civil Liberties Bureau's March 1919 compilation "War-Time Prosecutions and...
L
Louis Fazio
Released
Louis Fazio was listed on the ILD's 1932 winter-relief roster of Western Pennsylvania class-war prisoners — co...
C
Cecilio Ferguson
Released
Black Liberation Army member and Republic of New Afrika citizen, arrested March 22, 1982 and charged in the Br...
S
Samuel Rowland Fisher
Released
Samuel Rowland Fisher, a Philadelphia Quaker merchant, was one of the "Virginia Exiles" — about twenty promine...

Institutions in Pennsylvania

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

Allegheny County WorkhouseBlawnox, Pennsylvania
23 cases
Walnut Street JailPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania
20 cases
Philadelphia GaolPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania
18 cases
Butler County PrisonButler, Pennsylvania
13 cases
United States Penitentiary, LewisburgLewisburg, Pennsylvania
13 cases
FCI AllenwoodWhite Deer, Pennsylvania
12 cases
SCI DallasDallas, Pennsylvania
12 cases
Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas / SCI Pennsylvania state prisonsPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania
9 cases