The Oshkosh Police Department’s (OPD) Vice, Narcotics Unit, detective and patrol officers arrested 10 adult males after an undercover prostitution investigation on the North side of Oshkosh on Sept. 13.
According to the Facebook media release posted on Sept. 18, the ten males “ranging in age from 27-53 years old, were arrested for pandering. Nine of these males were from the Fox Valley area and one was from Beaver Dam. The Oshkosh Police Department works diligently to investigate crimes of this nature.”
OPD didn’t provide specifics about the investigation in Monday’s media release.
“The Winnebago County District Attorney’s Office will review each case/arrest and determine the next steps within the court system,” Oshkosh Crime Prevention & Public Affairs Officer Kate Mann said.
Mann said during the undercover operation, all arrested individuals were compliant with officers.
In the media release, OPD said that human trafficking awareness is important.
“For a variety of reasons, it can be very hard for human trafficking victims to get out of these situations,” the OPD media release said. “We partner with local non-profit organizations so that resources can be quickly provided to victims.The Oshkosh Police Department strives to reduce the number of victims by doing proactive investigations and being vigilant in our efforts to combat human trafficking.”
OPD said that signs associated with human trafficking involving a business include: long working hours, proximity of residence to business, lack of personal belongings in the home, large amounts of cash and only male customers.
Mann said that the OPD case has no connection to UW Oshkosh.
“There is no known relation to UWO in regards to this undercover detail,” Mann said.
The U.S. Department of Justice identifies the first six weeks of a university’s fall semester as a period of high risk for sexual assault perpetration on college campuses.
At UWO, Red Zone programming uses this time to focus on prevention.
It’s important to know that sexual assault happens at other times of the year, but these six weeks are disproportionate in the numbers of assaults that take place.
According to a 2007 Campus Sexual Assault Study, more than 50% of sexual assaults on campus occur in August, September, October and November.
UWO Police have done a lot to prevent sexual abuse on campus since the study.
“We believe that this initiative was a huge success because we increased our presence, we interacted more with our community members, we built stronger relationships with other campus departments who were also participating in Red Zone initiatives and we increased awareness for these issues in our community and with our peers,” the UWO Police Department page said.
UWO has resources to help. The UWO Mobile app has features like safe walk requests, incident reporting tools, emergency alerts and more. Similar to a taxi service, UWO Go provides free rides to students.
Students can also call 920-424-1212 or stop in the lower level of Radford Hall for additional help or resources.
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