Day II: 05/11/22

 Katharine Alfond

Senior Project


This morning, I went into the office at 8:30. I walked through security, and took the elevator up the second floor. Today was less overwhelming, as some faces I had recognized from my first day greeted me with a kind "good morning" and a smile. 

I walked into Ms. Jimenez's office, and began organizing and debriefing my day yesterday. Ms. Jimenez was expecting a client to show at 8:00 a.m. This client was a woman who has been struggling immensely. We had little hope in the client showing up due to her previous actions and her overall nature. We made two follow up calls, however, she did in fact show up, despite being over two hours late.

We found her shaken up, possibly dope-sick. She appeared to be very anxious and on edge. We went up the elevator with her and into a big, sterile conference room. The client was recently arrested with her common law husband., however the charges were pending. The client overtime settled into the environment and by analyzing her behavior and body language, she eventually became very open and honest with us. She had talked to us about her drug history, and current addiction (Fentanyl). The client had a baby in jail in January and has been struggling with postpartum depression.  We made tremendous progress  and she had agreed attempt to detox and seek treatment by the end of the meeting. It is common for these clients to feel ambitious in the moment, however, it is hard to say now if she will honestly pursue help.  


After lunch, we walked over to Porchlight, a non-profit Family Justice Center, for a quick and brief presentation on Human Trafficking. This presentation was mostly full of law enforcement and other officers. It covered the demographics for Colorado human trafficking. Supplemented with stats from 2020 & 2021. Ads and public information and stratagies were talked about, and tactics for flagging down suspicious and typical behavior of a trafficker or someone being trafficked. It appear that sex trafficking cases are on a rise, while labor is less prevalent. 

Today was very informative day. Tomorrow, I will spending 9 hours at the courthouse. Will have updates on some of the cases I saw inline yesterday!

- Katharine 

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