2025 Forum on Criminal Justice Draft Agenda
Please Note: All times listed are ET

Download as a PDF here

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1:00-2:30 pm Welcome and Opening Plenary
Crime Analytics is at the intersection of data, policy, and criminal justice. Embracing a philosophy of “what gets measured, gets managed,” this session will help organizations identify and address trends, opportunities, and challenges with the goal of transforming them into data-driven organizations. Use compelling data visualizations and thoughtful analyses to inform decision-making and promote transparency.
2:30 -3:00 pm Roundtable Networking Opportunities
3:00-3:15 pm BREAK
3:15-4:15 pm Fostering Program Sustainability
Ensuring sustainability for valuable grant funded programs is crucial for maximizing long-term impact and achieving lasting changes. During this session, you will learn key strategies for fostering financial, programmatic, and organizational sustainability. You will also hear about some efforts your peers have undertaken to build community capacity and sustainability sustain valuable programs.
3:15-4:15 pm Trends in Drug Trafficking and the Multijurisdictional Taskforce Model
While overdose from fentanyl dropped for the first time this year, deaths from drug overdose remain stubbornly high, impacting families in urban and rural communities in every state in America. Further, drug trafficking is a primary driver of crime and violence, and its suppression a major focus for law enforcement agencies across the country. This panel will consider recent trends in drugs and trafficking and what state and local law enforcement should consider when funding multi-jurisdictional task forces.
4:15-4:30 pm BREAK
4:30-5:30 pm Successful Crime Reduction Strategies
Many places have achieved historic reductions in crime. This session will share case studies from University of Chicago Crime Lab Leadership Academy participants sharing their capstone projects, illustrating how they did this. How will they plan to sustain it? And how can an SAA help?
4:30-5:30 pm Navigating State Policy From Behind the Scenes:
When SAAs can’t directly influence legislation, how can they still shape policy that supports victims and strengthens the criminal justice system? This session offers practical strategies for working behind the scenes—using data, partnerships, and internal influence—to ensure victim and criminal justice needs remain central in state policy
decisions. Learn how to elevate the voices of survivors, service providers, and law enforcement, even without a seat at the policymaking table.
Wednesday, August 6, 2025
1:00 -2:30 pm Welcome Back and Plenary Session
This session will help make sense of the national conversation on criminal justice policy, legislation Members of Congress are pursuing and changes the Trump Administration are encouraging in policy and practice.
2:30 -3:00 pm Roundtable Networking Opportunities
3:00-3:15 pm BREAK
3:15-4:15 pm Beyond the PMT: Trend Data Analysis
3:15-4:15 pm Unveiling the Chain: Human Trafficking and the Criminal Justice Response
Human trafficking is a significant health issue that requires a holistic response and a large commitment of criminal justice resources. Learn about the complexities and strategies that have worked in some jurisdictions to end labor and sex trafficking.
4:15-4:30 pm BREAK
4:30-5:30 pm Ensuring Compliance for Grants
There has never been a more important time to ensure that you are in compliance with federal grant rules and regulations. This session will cover the most common OIG and monitoring recommendations and strategies and tools to tighten up your internal controls.
4:30-5:30 pm Cross Training for 911 and 988
The 988 crisis line is up and running, but the transition has not always been smooth, and full integration with 911 dispatch is challenging. This session will focus on the 911 and 988 systems and what steps states and local communities can take to realize the promise of the 988 system.
Thursday, August 7, 2025
1:00-2:00 pm Leveraging Analytics and Artificial Intelligence to Optimize Grants Impact
This session will provide an overview of tools and best practices for navigating the growing use of AI in grants management. (from a grant-seeker and grant-maker perspective).
1:00-2:00 pm The Ecosystem of School Safety
Through a panel of SMEs and SAAs, the session will go through the various ways that states are supporting school safety, including mental health programs in schools, technology solutions, school resource officers and more. This session will cover both tried and true and new and innovative practices to support youth in our school systems and keep them safe from gun violence.
2:00-2:15 pm BREAK
2:15-3:15 pm Interagency Collaborations Between CJ and Mental Health
This interactive session will feature State Administering Agencies and their mental health partner agencies sharing best practices and strategies for ensuring people with mental health challenges get the help they need and avoid arrest and incarceration where appropriate.
2:15-3:15 pm The ABCs of AI
3:15-3:45 pm Roundtable Networking Opportunities
3:35 -4:00 pm BREAK
4:00-5:30 pm Closing Plenary Session and Thank You for Coming
NCJA will close out the Forum with a powerful speaker who will tie together the important work done in states and local jurisdictions and remind us of the impact.