How a Trafficking Survivor Became a Law Enforcement Leader

I wanted to throw the rope back to others that did not, like myself, have the opportunity

to get the help that was needed. Katherine Griffin is a resilient, purpose-driven leader, recovery coach, and the founder of our roadway to freedom, and we've been there done that. Drawing from her own journey and commitment to rehabilitation, she empowers women to rebuild their lives, overcome adversity, and find a path toward lasting freedom.

I rescue and rehabilitate. I have the only human trafficking for tier rehabilitation program that we know of in the world for human trafficking, meaning the four levels is labor, organ, sex, and drug. When you tell the truth about your life, your story, and you put it out there, it takes the sting out.

“Well, did you know she used to be a prostress, sure did, but what am I today?”

I work in law enforcement, and I'm a felon, everything they said that I can't do, God has allowed me to do. The living your legacy podcast for those who live, to leave a legacy. Hey, welcome back everyone to another episode of Living Your Legacy Podcast, and we have the opportunity to talk with some of the greatest entrepreneurs around the country.

The disruptors, and also beautiful women like yourself, women in power, we've got a special episode that I'm really excited to get into.

She said some amazing things, pre-show, but yeah, let's get into it.

“So, what's your name, where are you from, and what do you do?”

So I'm Katherine Griffin, I am the human trafficking victim services director for Harris County Constable, precinct one under the leadership of the great Alan Rosen, and I rescue and rehabilitate. I have the only human trafficking, four tier rehabilitation program that we know of in the world for human trafficking, meaning the four levels is labor, organ, sex, and drug. And it is housed in the Texas Department of Corrections at the Plain State Unit.

It is called Our Rowe Way to Freedom, and my free world program is called, we've been there done that, and I am a survivor of the sex industry and human sex trafficking. I am also in lifetime recovery from substance abuse, and I wanted to throw the rope back to others that did not, like myself, have the opportunity to get the help that was needed. Back then, we were just called those hoses, those prostitutes, instead of understanding

that a lot of us are incest survivors, we've been through molestation, rape, a lot of trauma, and when it comes down to working with individuals who've had all types of trauma, it's very important to be able to hear what an individual is saying, and then that lets me know if they are becoming our have already become addicted to their trauma, because the very

“thing that hurt them a lot of them run to, and unknowingly, why?”

Yeah, that's trauma-bonding. Yes, and so I am a peer-to-peer sex industry recovery coach specialist dealing with mental health, substance abuse, and sexual trauma.

A lot to unpack, there are a lot of amazing things, first of all, thank you for the work

that you do. A lot of these people, like you said, they come from backgrounds of, I mean, you said some great, like, incest, or a lot of molestation, right? But first of all, when it comes to trafficking, you said, four, a lot of us think are just human trafficking, and that sexual trafficking, right?

Human trafficking is the title.

Then you have four categories.

Gotcha. But there was, you said, organs, which is like, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you,

“okay, what is the number one organ that is trafficked on the black network?”

I don't know, like, hearts, well, that means they had to kill them. Yeah, they know. Skin. Skin is the largest organ in Germany. Skin is the largest organ, right?

And during the war, and where a lot of people have been burned and brown and black people are more of the highly targeted. Yeah. Because there are so many different variations in the pigmentation of the skin, and it's so easy. Easily done because even with deceitants, some people, not everybody's crooked, but a lot

“of the organ traffickers have money talks, and say that your loved one passes away in the”

hospital.

The most families never ask if they can examine their loved one's body when they get

to a funeral home, or even the ones that are doing cremation. And so, the reason why organ trafficking makes so much more money because it's silent, and it's invisible in playing sight, and a lot of people don't ever check, and you don't know if the retinas are gone, if the skin is gone, you don't know if the timing from the time that they are deceased, till they get downstairs, waiting on either the more to pick them up,

or the funeral home, if organs have been removed. That's crazy. But does this make sense? Oh, it makes perfect sense now, but most people don't think of that darkness, right, when someone does, of someone stealing at that point, like human body parts, and everybody's not crooked,

they're those who might be in palliative care, meaning hospice.

“And if someone needs that organ, and they were not registered organ donors, how do you know?”

If somebody wasn't paid a large amount of money to remove those organs, I mean, things happen. Yeah. So that's one piece, the labor trafficking we know quite a bit about, people working for little and no money, they hold their documents, and then anybody, can you say anybody? Okay, anybody, anybody, anybody, that ever has sold a joint. Okay, all right, yeah, some meth, appeal, whatever, to another human being, you just drug traffic.

Okay, yeah. You understand? Oh, yeah. And what's interesting about that, a lot of kids used to are still help support, like the moms, by selling illegal drugs, and so they are contributing to the delicacy of a minor with illegal substances.

Yeah. So the mama can go to jail. You're already okay, the fact, and you're receiving money from drug trafficking.

There's so many different angles that the public just never really thought, well, I just sold a couple of, you know,

a few dime bags just to hate it light meal or my phone bill. Yeah. But that's a drug trafficking because you're trafficking drugs from one human being to another. Did you ever thought about it like that? No, no, no.

Does it make sense? Of course it does. And then you've got the sex trafficking. Yes. And the saddest part is sex trafficking.

Most people just think of prostitution and women. But the transgender and transsexual population has been highly disrespected, misunderstood, and targeted. And no one ever talks about that. Boys, girls, other.

Boy, girl, other. Yeah. In order to pay bills or just because they were pieces of shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How about that?

Mm-hmm. The sex trafficking part being coerced and groomed and made that you're doing this to help us. I love you. If you love me, you will do that. And so many that I've worked with.

And in the past, let's just just do 20 years. They just did a basic count of how many people have been through one or both of my programs. 20 years out.

And combined, 10.900 million individuals have been through one or both of my programs.

Oh. That's a lot of people. That's a lot of people.

“But you got to remember, it's going to be a high population in the prison.”

Yeah. I have my own building. Okay. I have three dorms. Wow.

Eight on, bead arm and seat arm. And I have a full staff. I'm very, very pleased that the Texas Department of Corrections had the heart to want to do this. Because prisons' job is just basically to be security. They don't really have to deal with recidivation because prisons get paid for people coming back.

Yeah, yeah. You don't really think about kind of rehabilitation programs. You think of prison. You think it's just hard time. Right.

So I'm very grateful to you know, Texas is integrating your programs. Right, because these people are often a lot of the saddest stories that you hear. You know, you think people look down on them.

“But it's like, have you ever thought about where they come from?”

You know, so I watch a lot of software underbelly on YouTube, right? Where the guy also interviews, you know, a lot of prostitutes and pims and, and the people that go to them, right?

And, you know, he's always asking, tell me about your childhood, right?

And so many of those stories are some of the saddest, saddest stories, you know? And it's just like you feel for them. And so to hear on your end of things, a place where they can go and, you know, openly talk about it to, you know, a person you've been through it, right? And you're every day, you're living it still and, and that healing process, you know?

But it's great. So, people find you through the, the corrections facilities. Is that, is that how they go? So, first of all, I have the bat nine, which is a phone number. And if no one answers that number, please text that number, which is eight, three, two, eight, seven, seven, eight, nine, three. Three, three. Again, that's eight.

Eight, three, two. Eight, seven, seven. Eight, seven, seven. Eight, nine. Eight, nine.

Three, three. Three, three.

“Are you can go to catheter and grip in towns in 1960?”

Are you can just go to catheter and grip in towns in Instagram, Facebook? Yeah. So, I'm, I'm just so anxious to talk about your, your program for a bit, you know? They, they find you, they come into your program, you know? Right now in Harris County, all of the prostitution cases are, the women working in strip clubs are the cantinas on those prostitution stings. They have a choice to either go to jail.

I come to, we've been there done that, which we call, "Hokelass," which stands for helping others excel. And all of us are hosts helping others excel successfully. All of the terminologies that were derogatory, that we were called, I flipped it. But, you know, when, when you, when you see software underbed, right? It's almost like, I, not like a drug addict, but what I'm saying is that, it's like, it's all they know, you know?

So, they always go back to it because it's like, they, it's like the fast money, sometimes it's,

That's the problem. Yeah. What did you just say? Fast money. Fast, this telling you as fast as you get it, it's going to leave you even faster.

are living in a relationship.

Hmm. Now, mind you, our relationships have relationship moments. Yeah. But if you have more relationship moments, their relationship moments,

“you need to run, like you got gasoline, draws on an ale.”

Yeah. It's not going to work. So, um, and like I was talking early about being addicted to your trauma. And, you know, even in recovery, I am a woman in lifetime recovery. Yeah.

There are a lot of people that you're here. Oh, I've been sober for 10 years and then I relapsed. Well, just because you abstained from using don't necessarily mean you sober. If you still didn't get rid of the behaviors that run around, run along with being high. Yeah.

When you're sober and you're in lifetime recovery,

all you got to do is just follow a few stupid ass rules. If the stop sign says stop, what do you do? It's not optional. Right. That part, not optional.

And just because no police are around. Are you out in the middle of nowhere?

“You have to practice daily every day you wake up on zero.”

And you just have to get through that day. And what's important is, I don't mind and idle time will set you up. I hear a lot of people tell me all the time, "Well, my mama died. Oh, my dad died. Oh, my grandmother died. Oh, my child died." And that's why I relapsed. Stop blaming your relapsed on them.

Dad, people. You relapsed because you wanted to. Yeah. You know, when you fall down on the ground and scrape your knee lapses, also that, you know, there's the fast money, but then there's the fast healing, right?

Right. And it's almost like everybody wants micro, right? It might grow available everything. It comes fast, but then it goes fast. Absolutely.

And also the healing. It comes fast, but then it's gone, right? Right. Right. Yeah. I wish the microwaveable healing food was as good as the home cook food,

but it's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. But it's very important to be honest with yourself.

Yeah. So, say like when individuals like myself was high, how we own, it's going to take a good four years for you to even try to untangle some of the lies that you actually convinced yourself that we're real. You know, and one thing that I tell a lot of the people that I work with,

they're like, I don't want to talk, tell my business. I don't want everybody in my business.

I don't want anybody telling my story, well, first of all,

let me ask you something, and this is what I tell them. If you ate for three months and did not use the bathroom, how are you going to feel? How are you going to feel? Backed up.

So when you actually go and eliminate that waste out of your system, how do you feel? Free. So are you going to reach back in the toilet and put it back in? I don't know.

“So when you let it go, you need to stop worrying about if somebody else”

is telling your story because if they're telling it, it is not your story. They just picked up your waste. Not it makes them even more foolish it because they got their shit on top of your old shit. So if we stop worrying about what people are saying and live in your truth, live and be okay with it, when you tell the truth about your life,

your story and you put it out there, it takes the sting out. Did you know she used to be a prostitute? Let me tell you what happened. So it doesn't affect me. Yeah.

Like I'm hiding some dark grave secret. You got to own it. You got to own it. You know they said she used to be a prostitute and I was. But what am I today?

I work in law enforcement and I'm a felon. Everything they said that I can't do, God has allowed me to do. Yeah. I just came right at this foreign carrier handgun. But I got this tube of super glue and it worked real good when you squirted

your eyes and somebody want to mess with her.

You got to take those adversities and turn them into your super power, right?

Yes.

“That's what's on the other side of healing.”

So well, thank you so much, right? We're running out of time here.

But yeah, you're about to hop in your episode and I'm sure it's going to be an amazing one.

And yeah, I mean,

“honestly, for a woman in power show, there's no other woman that I'd rather have”

her than yourself, you know, proving to everyone, yeah, there's healing. And honestly, I just can't thank you enough for the work. I'd thank you. Just follow the laws of the land. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

“So yeah, thank you guys for joining us for another episode of Living Your Legacy podcast.”

And yeah, Catherine Griffin, right? Yeah. And yeah. The real Cathy Griffin. Yeah.

So yeah, two to three episodes.

When it airs, I'm sure it's going to be an amazing one.

And thank you for joining us again. Two to the other one.