London boom spells jobs for ex-convicts

[LONDON] Lorenzo Dorsett, a former Arsenal Football Club youth team soccer player, spent more than three years in prison for drug possession. Today he works as a painter and decorator in London, where a building boom is creating jobs that benefit more than just the economy.

"I've worked consistently since I finished" a training programme for current and former inmates, said Dorsett, 34. Before jail, "the only career path was football and when that stopped, I didn't know what else to do", he said.

Engineers, bricklayers and painters like Dorsett are finding eager employers in London as office and residential construct…