The Prison and Probation Services both have set up schemes to assist offenders into education, training, and employment. Earlier research claims that prison workshop experience is unhelpful in securing future work. The most common complaint from inmates in prison workshops is that the tasks they do there are boring and repetitive. The study is based on visits to eight establishments, chosen because they were thought to host some of the best and most innovative work concerning employment, education, and training. It also includes results of interviews with inmates, governors and discipline staff, and employers and agencies helping offenders into employment on release. The evidence base from which the "what works" principle is derived, that community-based work is normally more effective than that carried out in prison, is not strong. The study concludes that to maximize the impact of successful prison-based employment interventions requires prison service managers and governors to recognize that currently many prisons are an inhospitable and sometimes actively hostile environment for such work. To foster effective employment interventions requires that they be accorded a much higher priority. Figure, tables, notes, appendixes, references