S2E7 Letters From Loretto

In June 2013, a blog post written from inside the Federal Correctional Institution at Loretto, Pennsylvania, received more than one million hits. The author was John Kiriakou, a former CIA officer serving a 30-month sentence for blowing the whistle on the agency's torture program. Kiriakou had started "Letters From Loretto" as a way to document his experience inside a prison system he believed was corrupt, indifferent, and broken. What began as a personal record became a public window into federal incarceration—and a source of unexpected leverage inside the walls.

A broken finger and a broken system

Kiriakou's first extended story from Loretto concerned medical care. Two weeks after arriving, he dislocated his left pinky finger while exercising. He popped it back into place but knew from past injuries that it was also broken. When he went to the medical unit—which he calls "health services" only sarcastically—a physician's assistant told him it was "just jammed," denied his request for an X-ray, and gave him ibuprofen. Ten days later, with his hand still swollen and painful, the PA finally agreed to an X-ray. It showed that a tendon had snapped off at the center knuckle, pulling a chunk of bone with it.