The video format is a combination of comments by gang members, youth workers, and gang expert Steve Nawojczyk, who has been researching street gangs and other nontraditional independent youth gangs since 1987. The narrator offers facts on gangs. A number of the gang members explain that gangs become the family that gang members never had to meet their emotional needs. These needs include identity, discipline, acceptance, caring, and protection. Nawojczyk walks in a neighborhood where buildings are covered with gang graffiti, as he points to the graffiti and explains how it is a form of communication within and among gangs to establish gang identity and turf. As Nawojczyk explains, gangs seek to establish respect and punish disrespect through violence and the killing of members of rival gangs who show disrespect. Conflicts are dealt with through guns, violence, and killing. Gang members explain what it is like to be shot and to have friends and relatives killed by rival gang members. Such an atmosphere nurtures a "kill or be killed" mentality and an acceptance that a premature death is the most likely end of life. Plans for the distant future are thus supplanted by daily efforts at survival. Nawojczyk advises that communities must wake up to the fact of gang life in their midst and the reasons why youth are drawn to them. He encourages communities to structure role modeling and opportunities for youth that will make gang life an unnecessary lifestyle that promises only an early death. Programs that attempt to do this are briefly profiled in the video.