Phil Avery, a graduate of the Baltimore slums' school of crime and of the Maryland prison system, is betting heavily in these kids' favor. Phil, paroled after nine years, has himself found success as a writer, businessman, and director of a halfway house, as well as being a member of the Governor's Task Force on Prisons. Those ghetto kids who have read Phil's books rave about them, but other kids find their role model in Dammon, a teenage drug boss who controls much of the student body at his school. Edna Dean, a teacher who invited Phil to speak, now turns to him for help when a drug problem surfaces in her half-sister's family.