Others have come up to him and said they want out of the gang life.
"In that structure you can't share nothing. You can't share your emotions.
"Even if you were abused as a youngster, you can't share that cos that's [a] sign of weakness."
The former mob president is in Dunedin this week as the guest of combined churches to tell his story to interested groups, including a visit to the Otago Regional Corrections Facility at Milburn.
He finds people are usually interested to hear his story and that was indicated when more than 1800 people turned up to the Dunedin Town Hall to hear his R13 rated tale last night.
Mr Issacs said his talks were part of his work to pay back his debt to society - and he acknowledged he owed society a lot.
"I've taken a lot out of society with my rebellious ways. I've smashed people, done raping and pillaging."
The former leader of three Mongrel Mob chapters and the president of the gang, he organised the infamous Ambury Park Convention in 1986 that ended with the pack-rape of a young woman by some of the younger members of the gang.
Back then he commanded a life of women, drugs, money and crime.
Now, if you look beyond the smiling eyes, cheeky chuckle and leather vest with patches that read "Jesus is Love", you can still see the tell-tale tattoos of someone who has done evil.
He chronicles those things in his autobiography True Red, his story about becoming one of the country's most infamous mobsters.
It tells of his background, how he got into the mob, and vividly describes gang life, the crisis that drove him out of it and how his belief in God has kept him free of that life for 17 years.
He is now involved in community work and a mentoring programme, is a motivational speaker and regularly travels from his Pukekohe home to visit youth offenders in Mt Eden prison.
But he will only meet them if they have been "good".
"[If they've been] naughty . . . I've got nothing to say to them."
Mr Isaac wants to help those headed for the same path he once travelled, but is under no illusion that they will listen to him.
He knows he cannot stop them and does not make judgements.
"When I'm talking to young ones in the prison I can share my story and I know I've planted a seed for them to think about and that's all I want to do. I'm not there to give them any magical formula."
"Kids" got into gangs these days for different reasons than they did in his day, he said.
One of 13 siblings, he left home as a young teenager and over the next few years "lost his way".
Feeling he had no roots or connections to anyone or anything, he was drawn to the "crowded" and adrenalin-filled lifestyle of the gang.
Nowadays, gangs were generational, with children born into gangs and not knowing anything else.
He had noticed, from talking to youths, that there was a trend to more and different gangs being formed as the sons of gang fathers rebelled and wanted to do something against their father's gang.
Places like Dunedin were not immune to gangs, he said.
"It's definitely alive in Dunedin.
"I came to the convention here in 1987 and that generation's still here. They'll just carry on doing what they know."
Ask him about anything you want in his life and he will speak openly about his crimes, his four kids, his faith.
He said leaving the gang was hard: "It's a miracle I made it".
But living a life of Christianity was harder.
"It's a lonely life, but it's the only life. I know how much I am valued now, far greater than I knew back in the days of the gangs."
He did not talk about his Christian life to everyone, because he realised it was not for everyone.
"It is what worked for me. I'm not necessarily saying it's going to work for someone else.
"But if I can touch someone's heart or change somebody, or even help them think another way, I've been able to contribute back something to our society. There's not many people that get to do that."
