It’s a sad case of drug abuse, sexual assault, family violence, and crime. It’s happening right here in Karnes County and it’s happening every day. What looks like a relatively peaceful county on the surface during the day has its dark underside at night.

Centered around drugs, there exists a close community of families tied together in a lifestyle opposite that of the average worker. They claim the night as their territory and they prowl the streets looking for friends, drugs, a good time, and any opportunity to make a quick dollar by stealing what they can.

"Over the last five years, I’ve been broken into probably about four times. One time, it was three times in three weeks," recalls Ben Lyssy, owner of Big B Food Store on U.S. 181 in Karnes City.

Thieves smashed out windows several times to get into his store, stealing mostly beer and cigarettes. It’s a typical gas station robbery.

In Falls City, criminals have even been so bold as to rob the store in broad daylight.

"He came in the back door and I went to the back room," store manager Bob Sherman recalled one day a few years ago when he found a criminal trying to exit his store with two 18-pack cases of beer. "I chased him all the way down by the mill. He went in some bushes behind The Fillin Station. (Police) found my beer. Never did find the guy."

The criminals break into homes and cars, too. Anything that helps them to have a good time while not having to work is fair game, and the perpetrators aren’t just rambunctious kids.

Many are adults that have made a life out of having children, living off welfare, doing drugs, and stealing from Karnes County’s working class. They’re not the sort of people you see around town very often. They lurk in Karnes County’s shadow, and they can be tough to root out.

Law enforcement has it even harder since the 81st Judicial District Task Force closed down. Left on their own to handle the drug problem themselves, county and city police often are left with few options.

Kenedy resident Stephanie Gonzales was the last person to be tried and convicted on drug charges based on an undercover task force investigation in Karnes County.

The judge gave her 20 years for possession with intent to deliver August 31. Ten of those years are mandatory. She’ll spend a decade of her life behind bars.

Her 15-year-old daughter, who testified on her mother’s behalf the day she was sentenced, will be 25 when she sees her mother free again. Gonzales has four other younger children that have been in Texas Department of Family and Protective Services custody for seven years.

She also has a prior felony aggravated assault charge on her record from 2000.

"It’s a small subculture here. This is what they do: they sell, they steal, they forge checks, and this is how they keep buying. We’re talking the dregs and the losers of Karnes County," Sheriff David Jalufka said.

He’s been trying to tackle the problem since he came on as sheriff in 2004, but the issue goes far beyond sending a few people to prison. The culture itself is aimed at keeping their way of life alive.

Without undercover officers that used to be provided by the task force, Jalufka has to resort to catching criminals on small drug possession charges in the hopes of turning up more information.

The criminals are surprisingly loyal and uncooperative.

"We try to turn them into a confidential informant. They’re usually kin to the source — the narcotic dealer — or they have some sort of ties to them and they will not give them up," Jalufka said. "They’d rather go to the penitentiary because they’re more afraid of them than they are of law enforcement."

And that’s the catch for Jalufka’s department. Because most of the people that belong to the under-city culture are relatives by marriage or blood, they’re taught from an early age not to "snitch" on one another and to have each other’s back.

It’s a brotherhood bond, and most criminals caught with drugs will honor it to the point of serving years behind bars rather than being released on a deal and having to face their culture as a person that sold them all out.

The culture itself glorifies going to prison, though. It’s seen as a badge of honor — especially amongst the youth, who often idolize their real-world criminal heroes and the gangster lifestyle glorified by rap and hiphop music.

County Attorney Bobby Busselman recalls one conversation he overheard between several individuals at the elite program, also known as "boot camp," here in Karnes County.

"They talked like the gangsters on television … like they were being looked up to because they had done something to get on probation," he said. "We don’t teach them that you’re not supposed to want to go to jail."

The children often are the ones affected the most by the drug culture.

Karnes County Juvenile Probation Chief Officer Neva Schmidt sees it all the time in her line of work.

"They come from homes where there may be several siblings and they all have different fathers," she said. "Some of the kids get branded (a traitor) by their families (for wanting to get out). They don’t feel like they have an escape because it’s just encircled. They get it with their friends, they get it with their family — it’s just everywhere and they don’t feel like they can climb out."

Schmidt’s office provides structure for youths that have been involved in criminal activity. Many don’t appreciate the program’s involvement in their lives, but some welcome it as an excuse to get away from the peer pressure their families and friends pile on.

"I think sometimes probation and our boot camp is a good excuse for them to say no. We’ve had situations where kids don’t want to leave because there is so much structure that it’s a way of survival for them," Schmidt said.

The program, which runs drug testing, provides an easy out to kids that face peer pressure. They can say no, offering the excuse to peers that they may go back to jail if illegal substances show up on their tests.

Still, many choose the drug lifestyle over trying to face the hardship of climbing out.

"Almost all the juveniles are from broken homes. When these kids come in here … they don’t have any dreams," Busselman said. "They don’t have any aspirations of being something else. When I was a kid, all the kids my age wanted to be like Hopalong Cassidy or Gene Autry. Their heroes have all been in jail. That’s the sad part."

Busselman recalls one particularly shocking talk with a troubled young lady.

"They have no idea what they want to do when they’re an adult other than what their parents have done, and that’s just live off of welfare and have fun. I asked one of them particularly — it was a girl — I said ‘what do you want to do when you grow up?’ She said ‘Oh I’m going to have babies and get on welfare.’ That’s how she was brought up," Busselman recalled.

He said his office gets calls frequently from schools. Children as young as elementary-school age are truant.

Their parents just don’t care.

"This child doesn’t come to school because his parents party all night, do drugs, don’t work, and then they don’t get up and he sleeps late because no one gets him up to bring him to school," Busselman pointed out just one incident he’s had to deal with recently in Runge.

As the children grow up, they learn to repeat what they’ve been taught.

"What do we have for them? Those kids are destined to the adult system," Schmidt said. "They come in every week and you’re hammering them because they’re not doing what they’re supposed to do. They’re staying up late at night, sleeping ‘till noon … they’re depressed. What do you do? The state does not provide the communities with the resources to help those kids. Even our mental health clinic is not here any more."

Possibly even more disturbing than their induction into the drug lifestyle is the frequency of sexual assaults.

The last grand jury in August indicted four people on six different counts of sexual assault, three of which involved children. It’s a regular occurrence on the grand jury docket and a lot of it centers around the drug culture.

"They sleep all day, they wake up about 10 p.m. at night, and they hang out until 6 a.m. or 7 a.m. They don’t hang out in establishments. They mostly hang out in residences," Jalufka explained. "These people don’t make enough money to substantiate a living. Most don’t have vehicles."

Because of their income level, they often tend to house several families together to support one another. A lot of the time, girls end up sleeping in the same rooms or the same beds as boys, Busselman said.

Add drugs to the mixture and things begin to get ugly.

"There’s a lot of sexual assaults and a whole lot of them don’t get reported (to the police). The ones that we do get are pretty damn serious," he said. "They get stoned out of their mind, don’t know what’s going on, and they want a thrill. So much of it is just neglect of the children. They just fend for themselves. They don’t know when they’re doing something that shouldn’t be done."

As far as what should be done about the problem, Busselman said a big change needs to take place. At age 72, he’s set to retire next year, but he’s also been around long enough to come to the opinion that the same old tactic isn’t winning the fight.

Taking the profit out of drugs by legalizing them would take away the drug culture’s ability to feed itself by pushing drugs on the street, Busselman said.

"What argument is there against it? Here, I have more possession of marijuana (cases than) DWIs," Busselman said.

Jalufka said drug legalization might leave theft and violence the only way these people have to feed themselves, though.

His suggestion is education. Catching the kids when they’re young, he says, will help in the long haul.

"It’s going to take a long time through education. You have to tell them that you are a person — that you need to take responsibility for your actions (and) don’t blame society," he said. "I’ve spent a lot of time talking to small children. I’m here for the kids. Kind of like a preacher trying to save souls.

"If I can save one child from not going through this lifestyle, and he can get out of what he’s in and go out and better himself in the world and be productive, I’ve done my job. If we stay at this long enough, somewhere down the line, we will clean this up."