Wednesday, April 24, 2024
Sexual violence, stalking, and intimate partner violence are serious public health problems affecting millions of people in the United States each year.
Coryell County is joining with several other local counties to create a Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) after a presentation recently by Coryell County District Attorney Dusty Boyd.
This will help determine what resources are needed and to ensure that local victims of sexual assault have more services available without having to travel as far.
Other counties joining with Coryell in the effort include Hamilton, Lampasas, Milam and Mills counties.
"All counties must submit a SART plan. Right now, 24 counties across the state have these SART response teams," Boyd said. "Counties with under 200,000 population may join with contiguous (neighboring) counties to create a SART, with prosecutors, chiefs to the largest communities and representatives from health care and mental health providers participating."
Although Milam County is technically not adjoining any of the other participating counties, being separated from Coryell County by by Bell, Boyd said it was close enough that it will be able to join with the other counties and participate.
"I think it's a good idea and it's also one of those things that sound really good in Austin (among Texas legislators) but quite frankly it comes at a busy time when we are trying to move more cases efficiently," he said. "We certainly appreciate the idea but it's another unfunded state mandate."
Pct. 1 County Commissioner Kyle Matthews that Lampasas and Hamilton counties are not courts of record, and asked if that would affect their participation in the SART.
"Their counties are not but they do have district court there, so we still could join with them," Boyd said.
The cooperative efforts between multiple counties is intended to benefit the residents of each county, Boyd said.
"Counties like us share a lot of professionals, and we can work together so that there's a long-range plan so victims from here don't have to go to Temple for those (sexual assault) examinations," he said. "Our prosecutors and medical professionals are meeting together. It's a challenging time to do that with trying to get past the post-COVID haze and move as many cases as possible."
Pct. 3 County Commissioner Ryan Basham asked if the formation of the SART could actually result in cases moving through the system quicker in the future.
"It could," Boyd said. "We are working to formalize the way a complaint is handled. There is already a degree of formality in how Coryell County handles it. We all go to the same medical professionals, and children's advocacy center in Belton.
"We've got some time to develop (the SART). It's supposed to be effective by Dec. 1, 2022."
Boyd said he believes Coryell County is doing a good job in its response to sexual assault complaints.
"In my time with the DA's office I've never seen a problem with the way our county handles (cases of sexual assault)," he said. "Sometimes victims move away, and we reach out to law enforcement agencies in those areas to get them services."
Commissioners voted to enter an interlocal agreement with the other counties to form the SART.
