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Span is a training centre for people who have experienced mental health difficulties. It provides people with the opportunity to learn practical skills and gain qualifications, build their confidence and self‐esteem, and meet others who share similar experiences. This paper describes one of the courses run at the centre.

Tackling high reoffending rates in England and Wales is of significant political interest, with education and training being viewed as an important mechanism to achieve change. The purpose of this paper is to present the findings of a small empirical study examining a life skills programme delivered in a Category C prison in the West Midlands.

The study used a multi-method approach incorporating observations of two modules, four focus groups with prisoners enrolled on the programme, questionnaires with programme completers, and semi-structured interviews with staff.

The findings indicate that life skills are an important component in rehabilitation. More specifically, developing the necessary tools to assist prisoners in everyday life, such as recognition, interpretation, reflection, response, and planning is fundamental to rehabilitation.

A limitation of this study was that only prisoners currently at this Category C prison were included. This could be complemented by the inclusion of more participants who had completed the programme; however, access and data protection considerations limited the study to one location.

The key message of this study is that without addressing basic life skills, education and vocational rehabilitation is severely limited.

To reduce reoffending rates, it is important to conceive rehabilitation in broader terms, not simply in relation to education and vocational training.

This paper offers insight into an unreported area of good practice in prison rehabilitation provision.

This chapter examines the prisoners’ strike which took place throughout Great Britain in August 1972. The strike, the first of its kind in British penal history, took place against a background of sub-standard conditions in British prisons, with an outdated prison estate, overcrowding, ‘slopping out’, and a prison department preoccupied with secrecy. The strike was not a sporadic protest, rather it occurred during a year of social and political unrest both inside and outside prisons, and was led by an organisation of prisoners and ex-prisoners – the Union for the Preservation of the Rights of Prisoners (PROP). While the government recognised the need for improvements in prison conditions, it refused to recognise the right of prisoners to organise. An analysis of the 1972 strike and the role of PROP can inform contemporary penal reform and abolitionist debates among scholars, practitioners, activists, prisoners and ex-prisoners.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Term. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

A competitive business strategy with a greater chance of success depends on an accurate quantitative analysis of business strategic factors prevailing in a company. The purpose of this paper is to conduct the latter to determine the level of competitiveness in a sector.

This study develops a tool based on literature classics and tested in the telecommunications industry to determine market segment competitiveness, market attractiveness and the relative ability of companies to generate profits.

The proposed tool allows managers to quantify each strategic factor and, thus, identify positive factors leading to a competitive advantage and weaknesses leading to vulnerability, which enables an improvement in daily strategic decision making.

Implementing the tool can enable managers to both quantify each strategic factor and improve strategic decision making.

This methodology employed here is novel. As such, this study provides new insights into how to compete in the telecommunications industry and discusses useful implications for academia, new entrepreneurs, buyers and suppliers.