The introduction invites the reader to slow down in order to spend time with many different kinds of people who have carved out meaningful and sometimes radical social life adjacent to large-scale human confinement. It is easy to think of correctional facilities as institutions that are set apart, tucked away, impermeable, and functioning far outside the activities and concerns of daily life. And for many people across the United States, this may be true—prisons exist somewhere else. But for the millions upon millions upon millions of people who live in close proximity to prisons, who rely on them for employment, who regularly visit, write to, think about, and care for people trapped in them, prisons are a regular feature of social life. The aim is to emphasize close contact with folks who have spent the better part of their lives navigating the spaces that surround Cumberland County’s five facilities. And the hope is that in meeting all kinds of people who occupy the same to-the-side spaces as the bartender, readers will learn something about prisons and their function within one locale, catching a glimmer of the alternative rhythms, a spark of the resilience and resistance, an appreciation for the beauty of social life happening in a place that was developed through the mechanism of confinement.