Just Works Newsletter, January 2026

From the Desk of the CEO

Jennifer G. Long, JD, MGA | Chief Executive Officer, AEquitas

Dear Friend,

January marks both National Stalking Awareness Month and Human Trafficking Prevention Month—two crimes that thrive in invisibility and frequently intersect. This moment calls us to slow down and confront realities that too often go unnoticed, minimized, or deliberately ignored—crimes that hide in plain sight until the harm is undeniable.

Stalking is widely misunderstood. Many see it, inaccurately, as a “nonviolent” crime until it evolves into physical violence. But stalking carries heavy wounds—deep fear, emotional harm, negative professional and financial consequences—that are invisible but leave indelible marks on the victims, nonetheless.

Many people fail to understand the terror stalkers inflict on their victims or recognize stalking as a dangerous pattern of behavior rooted in control, intimidation, and fear. That’s why we take an relentless approach to teaching strategies that address and thwart stalking founded in three principles: knowing what it is, naming it when it happens, and then taking immediate action to stop the perpetrator. It’s why we are also relentless in using evidence-based investigative and prosecution strategies as well.

As with stalking, human trafficking crimes operate in the shadows. Efforts to curb sex trafficking have strengthened but still overlook many adult victims who are recruited and remain in numerous venues of the sex trade, including dancing and tech-facilitated exploitation through force, fraud, and coercion. The identification, investigation, and prosecution of labor trafficking crimes also lag far behind sex trafficking crimes.

In some cases, stalking and human trafficking intersect. Traffickers stalk targets whom they identify for opportunities to groom and exploit. Trafficked victims and other exploited persons may be stalked by perpetrators, including traffickers as well as other exploiters who surveil, intimate, or harass trafficked persons because they know they are easy targets and face significant barriers to reporting crimes committed against them.

At AEquitas, we work every day at the point where these stories intersect with the justice system. We support prosecutors, law enforcement, and allied professionals across the country so they can identify stalking early, respond effectively, and pursue accountability without placing the burden on victims to prove their fear before harm occurs.

A central part of this work is the Stalking Prevention, Awareness, and Resource Center (SPARC). SPARC exists because stalking is still widely underreported and under prosecuted, often due to a lack of understanding about what stalking looks like and how dangerous it can be. Through SPARC, we provide practical, accessible tools and training designed for both the public and professionals, including advocates, law enforcement, and prosecutors. The goal is simple and urgent: to help people recognize stalking, name it for what it is, and have the tools to stop it before it escalates into greater harm. Awareness without action is not enough. SPARC ensures awareness is paired with responsibility and response.

That is why it mattered deeply to us when AEquitas was recently featured on the Strictly Stalking podcast, the leading podcast dedicated to stalking awareness, answering a growing global demand for survivor-led storytelling. Ranked in Apple Podcasts’ Top 200 in more than 50 countries and downloaded over 25 million times worldwide, Strictly Stalking demonstrates a clear and rising appetite for content that confronts stalking as the serious crime it is—while driving awareness, understanding, and change. Hosted by Jaimie Beebe and Jake Deptula, the series features over 300 interviews with survivors, advocates, and experts, delivering honest, impactful conversations that educate and empower and has created a space where stalking is treated as the serious crime that it is.

I was honored to join the podcast in October 2025 to discuss the work of AEquitas in addressing stalking. In the episode from January 2, 2026, AEquitas Senior Attorney Advisor Jane Anderson joined the conversation to speak about how stalking cases are frequently minimized within systems that were not built to recognize patterns of coercive behavior. She explained how prosecutors and first responders often lack the tools, training, or legal framework needed to intervene early. And she spoke to the consequences of those gaps, not in theory, but in lived outcomes for victims whose safety depends on whether the system understands what it is seeing.

In January, AEquitas was honored to launch our second podcast, The Traffick Report, with the inaugural season hosted by former Attorney Advisor Miiko Anderson. In the inaugural episode, Miiko and her guests turned the stereotype of “ghosting” on its head by focusing not on victims who “fail to appear” but on the systems and criminal justice professionals whose behavior serves to “ghost” the victims themselves. In turn, this “ghosting” of the victims furthers their inability or unwillingness to participate in the investigation or prosecution of their traffickers.

Our messages reflect the heart of AEquitas’ work. Stalking is not about isolated incidents. It is about accumulation. It is about context. And it requires informed, trauma-responsive responses that do not wait for violence to occur before action is taken.

This is where your support matters.

AEquitas, through private and government funding, is the only organization that provides expert skills-based training and consultation to prosecutors and their multidisciplinary teams focused on human trafficking, stalking, and the often-intersecting crimes of sexual violence and intimate partner violence.

Your generosity allows AEquitas to sustain and expand efforts like SPARC and our extensive human trafficking training, provide national training, offer real-time consultation, and deliver evidence-based guidance to the professionals who stand between victims and further harm. It allows us to push the system forward, so stalking is recognized earlier, charged more accurately, and prosecuted more effectively. And it allows us to keep survivor safety at the center of every strategy we advance.

As National Stalking Awareness Month and Human Trafficking Prevention Month comes to a close, I ask you to stand with us; to help ensure that stalking is no longer dismissed, minimized, or misunderstood; and to help build a justice system that recognizes danger before it becomes tragedy.

Thank you for believing in this work and for making it possible.

With gratitude,

Jennifer Long
Chief Executive Officer
AEquitas

P.S. If any part of my letter moved you, informed you, or taught you something you didn’t previously know—an idea, a story, a voice—let me know at [email protected]. I read every note. –JGL