By Emilie Eaton Crystal Gonzales endured what she calls “a rough childhood” in San Antonio. Her father was in and out of prison for selling drugs. Her stepfather beat her mother, and his friends sexually abused Crystal. “I had trauma,” she says. So when an older friend asked if she wanted to try marijuana, she… Read more

She walked out of a rundown apartment and approached a nondescript gray minivan stopped in the street on San Antonio’s near West Side. Her name was Stephanie, and she was wearing a gray T-shirt, rolled-up blue jeans and no shoes. In her hands was a metal cash box stuffed with used hypodermic needles.  Read more

Ricky Cantu could not help himself. He’d been convicted of drunken driving six times. Judges had suspended his license. They’d sent him to prison. They’d ordered him to get treatment. None of it worked. Read more

Marisela Cadena was terrified. The boyfriend who claimed to love her had beaten her time and again. Read more