ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with the social worlds that first-timers encounter on their arrival, just in prison, but on their journeys towards prison following arrest. Both Langa and Adam were taken to court after one night in the police cells: Langa had a short drive in the gumba-gumba, and Adam was escorted on foot through an underground tunnel linking the police station to the court's holding cells. In the court cells, the newly arrested who have come from the police station to court encounter others who have already been in prison and are arriving at court, from prison, for their ongoing trials. Warders ushered Langa and the other newcomers into the admission cell of the 'awaiting trial' prison. Tracing Adam's and Langa's pre-trial journeys from the police station into prison reveals their unwitting roles in other inmates' lives, the prison economy, and hierarchies.
