CHIN WAS 17 when he and a friend robbed a man at knifepoint for $3,000. Now, nearly four years later, the Hongkonger - who declines to give his full name - is earning $7,000 a month working for a building contractor.
'I think it's enough for me,' Chin says. 'I feel quite satisfied about my job. I have a sense of achievement.'
Chin's life almost took a different direction. After he was released from a correctional institution for juvenile offenders in 2003, he spent more than a year shuffling between odd jobs. 'It was hard,' he says. 'No one wanted to hire me.'
At one point, a friend he knew before prison asked him to sell pirated VCDs.
'I didn't know what to say to him,' Chin says. Eventually, he declined. 'I wanted to have a new life, a new start.'
Chin's new job didn't come by chance. It was the result of a scheme involving businesses and the Correctional Services Department (CSD). One Company One Job links employers with former inmates looking for work. Companies agree to interview qualified former inmates; in return, the CSD provides willing recruits whose progress is monitored - initially, anyway - by a case worker.
