John Butler will start in the Governor’s office next week as a policy adviser working on criminal justice reform and immigration issues, as Dianna Houenou transitions to her new role as chair of the CRC.

Butler is an attorney with more than a decade of experience in social justice advocacy, criminal justice policy, and non-profit management.

He was most recently the Director of Research & Outreach at Fair and Just Prosecution; a non-profit that works with reform-minded elected prosecutors on evidence-based criminal justice policy reform. In addition to his role with Fair and Just Prosecution, Butler was also an Associate Director at the Center for Court Innovation, where his work focused on court-based reform to the criminal justice system. Prior to joining the Center, he worked as a researcher for the Stanford Criminal Justice Center, a student attorney at the Santa Clara County, CA Public Defender’s Office, founded and managed a communications consulting firm, staffed a number of local and national political campaigns, and was a director at a youth development non-profit in Newark.

Butler holds a bachelor’s degree in American Studies from Brown University, a Masters in Comparative Politics from the London School of Economics and a J.D. from Stanford Law School. He is on the boards of BioBus, Inc., NJ Harm Reduction Coalition, and Frost Valley YMCA and has served on the Boards of New Jersey Policy Perspective and the New Jersey Harm Reduction Coalition before joining the staff of the Governor’s Office.