Jennifer Long, a former Philadelphia prosecutor, co-founded a training organization called AEquitas in 2009 to help prosecutors tackle sexual assault cases. She thinks her peers focus too much on conviction rates.

“I don’t mean to minimize convictions. Obviously, we want to hold offenders responsible. But we want to identify what skills and knowledge we need to be able to do that,” Long said.

Too often, she said, prosecutors underestimate the strength of their cases and the ability of juries to sort through them.

AEquitas shows them how to overcome potential hurdles, such as using a toxicologist to discuss a victim’s impairment or a psychiatrist to explain victim and offender behavior.