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The National Institute of Justice (NIJ)—the research, development, and evaluation agency within the Department of Justice's Office of Justice Programs—will hold its annual conference on July 23–25, 2007, in Arlington, VA. The conference brings together criminal justice scholars, policymakers, and practitioners at the local, State, and Federal levels to share the latest information on research findings and technological advances.

OJJDP coordinated with NIJ to organize several juvenile justice research panels for this year's conference:

• "Latest Findings From the OJJDP Girls Study Group" will provide an overview of the group's latest activities. The panel will highlight study results on developmental sequences of girls' delinquent behavior and on connections between sexual assault and female delinquency.

• "Disproportionate Minority Contact (DMC): Competing Causal Arguments and Remedies" will review research on the sources of disproportionate representation of minority youth in the juvenile justice system and approaches to reducing DMC.

• "In Search of Evidence-Based Practices in Juvenile Corrections" will present evaluation results from STREETSmart, a reentry program that provides job placement, continuing education, and life skills mentoring to assist youth leaving the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice's Avon Park Youth Academy.

• "Recent Findings From OJJDP's Causes and Correlates Program of Research" will present the latest findings from three coordinated longitudinal research projects designed to improve understanding of serious delinquency, violence, and drug use by examining how youth develop within the context of family, school, peers, and community. OJJDP has supported the Causes and Correlates research since 1986.

Several other panels at this year's NIJ conference will address youth issues. Topics include technologies for keeping schools safe, effects of transferring juveniles to adult courts, gang control efforts, and approaches to preventing teen-dating violence.

For additional information about the conference, visit www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/events/nij_conference/welcome.html.

NIJ's annual conference showcases what works, what does not work, and what the research shows as promising in criminal justice programming. It features new developments in technology that increase public safety. The conference emphasizes benefits to researchers and practitioners who work together toward effective evidence-based policies and practices.