Cops & Courts

Santa Cruz Deputy Chief Steve Clark has been with the Police Department for 25 years. But there are some things that even experience doesn’t teach. Up until now, he’s been trained to respond to incidents.

A note to readers and listeners: only the first names of children are used in this story.

Christian is 15 years old. And like many teenagers, he’s made some mistakes. “Kinda stupid stuff,” he says. “Like vandalism. Not necessarily graffiti or anything. But yeah. Vandalism.”

And he got caught.

“It’s funny, one little incident can change everybody’s opinion of you,” Christian says. “Like, everybody. At school, like the teachers, from the students, to your family and stuff. But I try not to look at it as a negative or anything.”

Slavery doesn’t often make the headlines, but the practice is alive and well in the 21st century. According to an investigation in the San Francisco Public Press, there are more people enslaved today than at any other time in history. The U.S. State Department says that estimates of those enslaved through human trafficking ranges from 4 million to 27 million people.