Brazos County Sheriff’s Office and Unbound Now announce new initiative to combat human trafficking

KBTX First News at Four
By Katie Aupperle
Published: Oct. 14, 2022 at 8:14 PM GMT-6

BRYAN, Texas (KBTX) -The Brazos County Sheriff’s Office and Unbound Now Bryan College Station announced a new initiative to combat human trafficking in the Brazos Valley.

“Human trafficking is an issue that’s going all the way around the world,” Deputy David Wilcox said. “We have 40 million victims of human trafficking worldwide, and being able to prepare for that here in the Brazos Valley and our surrounding region and get the training and resources that we need to be able to address it and target that is very valuable.”

The Sheriff’s Department says our community is at a special risk because of our location within the “Texas Triangle” which connects DFW, Houston, and San Antonio to the rest of the country. This Texas Triangle region is considered one of the more heavily trafficked areas in the United States.

To improve their response, the Brazos County Sheriff’s Office and Unbound BCS have partnered together and will received a grant for $1.5 million dollars which will be distributed over the next three years.

“With this grant, we’re going to be getting 2 new investigators,” Deputy Wilcox said. “They’re going to receive specialized training for human trafficking and they’re also going to be able to get the resources that they need to do that job effectively, what it’s going to take to be able to identify the victims, prepare cases for prosecution and follow that through for the District Attorney. On top of that, we’re going to be partnering with Unbound, which is going to be a critical resource and support system for victims of human trafficking. And so being able to combine all this together and work with Unbound, we can build trust in our community so that victims can come forward and also do a better job of targeting human trafficking.”

These services will cover several counties including: Washington, Leon, Robertson, Madison, Grimes, Burleson, Lee, Walker, and Brazos County.

“We’re going to be focusing our efforts on being able to identify human trafficking victims and being able to do an effective job as a law enforcement agency,” Deputy Wilcox said. “Then, to have Unbound partnered with us is invaluable in being able to provide the victims of these crimes what they need to be able to recover and to move forward through this very traumatic and hard time.”

Additionally, the funds will be used to establish a multidisciplinary regional task force that will incorporate community leaders from across the Brazos Valley to support and encourage a collaborative effort among local and federal law enforcement, prosecutors, victim service providers, and other partners to end human trafficking in our community.