Making prisoners upset in court? About time (12)
I believe the answer is:
construction
'making' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'prisoners upset in court? about time' is the wordplay.
'prisoners' becomes 'cons' (**).
'upset' is an anagram indicator.
'about' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'time' becomes 't'.
'in'+'court'='incourt'
'incourt' with letters rearranged gives 'ruction'.
'ruction' put after 't' is 'truction'.
'cons'+'truction'='CONSTRUCTION'
(Other definitions for construction that I've seen before include "Act of building" , "Industry of erecting buildings" , "Building; interpretation" , "Process of erecting buildings" .)