Gang life along California's Central Coast is the subject here, told by men and women who lived it and got out. Filmmaker Matt Yoon, working with Santa Maria Police Lieutenant Daniel Cohen, sits down with ex-gang members who describe how they were recruited, what kept them in, and what it finally cost them, aiming the film squarely at junior high and high school students rather than a general audience. The interviews are plain and direct, built to counter the version of gang life kids hear from peers and music videos, and they land on specific consequences: prison time, violence, relationships destroyed. Funded by the Santa Barbara Foundation and the Santa Maria Police Chief's Council and produced by the City of Santa Maria, the project reads as a community response to a local problem rather than a broad survey of American gangs. There's no narrator standing outside the story here, just former members explaining, in their own words, the choices that led them in and the ones that eventually got them out.