Prison nicknames
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Prison nicknames at FCI Loretto followed a pattern that John Kiriakou describes as close to universal along racial lines. Everybody in the prison went by a nickname, he says, except that most of the white prisoners did not, while all the Hispanic prisoners did, and absolutely all the Black prisoners did.

The names usually came from one of two places: a man chose his own, or he carried one from childhood.

Formal use

Kiriakou notes that the nickname was not purely social. When the prison ran pickup basketball tournaments, the sign-up asked for a man's name, his prisoner identification number, his cell, and his nickname. The nickname was what got used; the real name was not.

Watch Out

Kiriakou's illustration is a cellmate he describes as the only man in the room who meant him harm: a scrawny prisoner from Virginia Beach, Virginia, who was not connected to a gang.

The man's nickname was Watch Out. Kiriakou says he was such an asshole that Kiriakou would never use it, and called him Look Up instead. When the man finally demanded to know why Kiriakou could not get his nickname right, Kiriakou asked who had given him that stupid nickname in the first place, Watch Out, Look Up, what was the difference. The man backed off.

Kiriakou describes the retaliation that followed as babyish and petty: the man stole his glasses one night while he was sleeping, and had simply put them under the locker, where Kiriakou found them in about five seconds.

The episode ends with Kiriakou's transfer out of the cell at the six-month mark, which he describes as a real process with no guarantee of success.

See also

- FCI Loretto
- Prison Cell Transfers
- John Kiriakou
- Prison racial segregation
