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This time, Julian Stevens thinks he can make it on the outside.

Recruited by the Varrios Locos Town gang as an 11-year-old living in Salt Lake City's Glendale neighborhood, Julian, known as J.D. to family and friends, became entwined in gangs before he hit junior high school.

By age 12, he burglarized homes and served as the getaway driver for older gang members.

At 13, he sold cocaine on the street, carried out robberies and fired at rival gang members during drive-by shootings.

He'd experimented with drugs on his own by 14, spurring addictions he'd spend more than a decade trying to kick.

And by 18, he'd abandoned a promising boxing career for the lure of the gang life -- a decision that has led him to spend months of his childhood in juvenile detention and the majority of his adult life in prison.

It wasn't until he was housed in a special security threat unit designed for violent gang members at the Utah State Prison in Draper that Stevens, now 31, decided he'd had enough.

"It took a lot of thinking for me to realize who I am. I am better than this," Stevens said earlier this month, gesturing toward prison walls.

Stevens renounced his gang ties in 2001 -- a move that could have gotten him killed. The former gang members he'd once put his life on the line to defend disowned him, and without their protection or his reputation as a VLT leader, he was at risk for attacks.

Stevens was moved from the prison's gang unit into a program called Conquest, which gives inmates intensive substance abuse counseling and life skills classes. Stevens said his release day in the spring will be the last he spends behind gray walls. Instead, he hopes to immerse himself in community anti-gang initiatives.

He also dreams of starting his own boxing gym, where he can counsel teenagers in danger of falling prey to gangs, and promote the sport that almost landed him a spot in the 1996 U.S. Olympic Boxing Trials.

"I look at what's going on now and I see these guys doing drive-by shootings, and these little kids are getting hit. I just don't agree with it," said Stevens.

Among the greatest motivators for Stevens is to be a role model for his 12-year-old son. Stevens said the boy is being courted by the same gang he joined as a teenager.

"There's no turning back now," Stevens said. "It's time to grow up. It's time to change."

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