Inside the gymnasium of the Frank Baxter Youth Justice Centre, a group of young people huddle around Joe Kwon.
He's stepping them through the day's exercise routine: a gruelling 60 minutes of burpees, push-ups and squats.
They're surrounded by brown brick walls and barbed wire — a stark reminder of where they are — but this group of under 18s are full of excitement and promise.
It's their last day of Mr Kwon's nine-week fitness program.
"Today's the day, it's graduation," he tells the group.
But this isn't the end or extent of his help.
The 34-year-old will mentor the teens for a further 12 months once they're released, helping them with education and employment.
The Stronger Pathways Together program, which has been running for about two years, combines exercise, building self-esteem and readiness for life beyond detention, in a philosophy he calls the G-code.
"What we deliver is goal setting, being grounded, gratitude, and just getting these boys mentally equipped to face the life on the outside," he said.
In nine short weeks, the program is already having an impact – one young person said Mr Kwon had taught him that "another life is possible".
"It's been inspiring because I aspire to be better in life," he said.
In fact, Mr Kwon has helped him to fulfil one of his biggest aspirations.
"Through him, I've been accepted into UNSW which has always been a goal for me to go to university… being the only person to go to university like immediate and extended [family], it's really a goal."
'My life is over'
Mr Kwon used fitness to survive his time in prison.
He'd just turned 21 and was spending the night in the executive suite of the Shangri-La Hotel in Sydney.
The cash he made from the previous night's drug deal was laid out on the table.
But then came a knock at the door, he thought it was room service.
It was the NSW Police Tactical Response Group, armed with machine guns and their faces covered in balaclavas.
He was arrested and subsequently sentenced to 13 years in prison for directing a criminal enterprise.
He ended up serving nine years in jails across NSW.
"At that time, I was thinking my life is over," he said.
But it was in prison Mr Kwon met his first positive mentor, a white-collar criminal, who taught him about the importance of education and self-worth.
It shifted Mr Kwon's mindset and turned his life around.
He studied commerce at university and started up his not-for-profit, CONFIT, a social enterprise to reduce recidivism.
"If it wasn't for him, I'm thinking where would my life be? And if I met a positive mentor earlier in my life, would I have gone to prison?" he said.
"So, I wanted to come back and change that narrative."
Breaking the cycle
He and his team of reformed inmates use their prison fitness skills to connect and resonate with young people in detention to stop them from reoffending.
Fellow mentor Adrian Masih met Mr Kwon inside prison and quickly found a "brotherhood" of like-minded inmates passionate about fitness.
He says there are usually three types of individuals inside prison – gamblers, drug users and fitness junkies – they fall into the latter.
"We wanted to bridge this gap from inside the system into community … I guess those are the foundational aspects of kind of moving back into society," Mr Masih said.
"If you don't have that support, it's very challenging and this is kind of why we were birthed."
The program is backed by a major grant from Impact100 Sydney, a grassroots movement for change, in partnership with charity Shine for Kids to keep 80 young people from returning to prison.
In NSW, it costs $1,956 to detain a young person each day in the last financial year — that's almost $700,000 annually, according to the latest report on government services.
Almost two-thirds of 10 to 17 year olds reoffend within 12 months of their release from detention, while 80 per cent reoffend nationwide.
"That recidivism is something that we really want to tackle, and we know that we can do that through positive mentors," Shine for Kids Operations Manager April Long said.
'But we need those other protective factors like employment, like education.
"A lot of the young people here are doing a fitness course so that when they're out they too can be personal trainers, because we know that employment is a massive protective factor from not returning to crime, not returning to custody."
The Frank Baxter Youth Justice Centre, in Kariong near Gosford, is the largest in NSW and is one of a handful of centres to have implemented the program.
Centre manager David Lowe said the young people must demonstrate certain behaviours to participate.
"We've really seen a high take-up in terms of boys trying to improve their behaviour, increase their skill set to be able to be involved in these programs," Mr Lowe said.
"It alleviates the boredom, it promotes positive mental health … and it also promotes positive behaviour change throughout the centre.
"Other boys see that this group of boys are involved in such a positive program they want to be involved [too], so it has effect right across the whole centre."
Starting with no funding, Joe Kwon now hopes to roll out his program across the state and right across the country.
"If we didn't get funding we'd still be doing because this is a passion of ours, because we can see the difference that we're making," he said.
"No dollar figure can be put on what we feel, that's same with myself and my team, and that's what we do – because we believe in what we do."
