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Amanda Butler

Assistant Professor
Criminology

BIOGRAPHY

Amanda Butler is an Assistant Professor in the School of Criminology at SFU. Her work focuses on improving outcomes for justice-involved people with mental and substance use disorders. Topics of interest include drug policy, care pathways, criminal justice diversion, and correctional programing and policy. Amanda is a mixed methods researcher with expertise in using linked administrative health and justice data for population level research. 

In 2022, she was commissioned by the BC Attorney General to investigate and make recommendations regarding repeat offending and random stranger violence in BC. She completed a CRISM-funded postdoctoral fellowship at McMaster University where she focused on opioid-related mortality among people who experience incarceration. 

Amanda is an Associate with the Access to Justice Centre for Excellence at the University of Victoria and a co-founder of the Health and Justice Applied Research Collaborative. 

AREAS OF INTEREST

Mental health; substance use; drug policy; forensic systems; correctional policy and programming; prisons/jails; epidemiology.

EDUCATION

  • BA Honours (UofG)
  • MA, PhD (SFU)

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

  • Butler A, Croxford R, Bodkin C et al., (2023). Burden of opioid toxicity death in the fentanyl-dominant era for people who experience incarceration in Ontario, Canada 2015-2020: a whole population retrospective cohort study. BMJ Open, 2023;13:e071867. 
  • Scher B, Neufeld S, Butler A, Bonn M, Zakimi N, Farrell J, Greer A. (2023). “Criminalization Causes the Stigma”: Perspectives from People Who Use Drugs. Contemporary Drug Problems. ePub ahead of print. doi: 10.1177/00914509231179
  • Russell C, Lange S, Kouyoumdjian F, Butler A, Ali F. (2022). Opioid Agonist Treatment Take-Home Doses (‘Carries’): Are Current Guidelines Resulting in Low Treatment Coverage Among High-Risk Populations in Canada and the United States? Harm Reduction Journal, 19 (89).
  • Calais-Ferreira L, Butler A, Dent S, et al. (2022). Multimorbidity and quality of primary care after release from prison: A prospective data-linkage cohort study. BMC Health Serv Res 22, 876.
  • Butler A, Zakimi N, Greer A. (2022). Total systems failure: police officers’ perspectives on the impacts of the justice, health, and social service systems on people who use drugs. Harm Reduction Journal. 19, 48.
  • Carter A, Butler A, Willoughby M, et al. (2022). Interventions to reduce suicidal thoughts and behaviours among people in contact with the criminal justice system: A global systematic review. EClinicalMedicine- The Lancet. 44, 1-19. doi: 10.1016/j.eclinm.2021.101266
  • Zakimi N, Greer A, Butler A. (2022). Too many hats? The role of police officers in drug enforcement and the community. Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice. doi: 10.1093/police/paab082
  • Butler A, Nicholls TN, Samji H, Fabian S, Lavergne, R. (2021). Prevalence of mental health needs, substance use, and co-occurring disorders among people admitted to prison. Psychiatric Services. doi: 10.1176/appi.ps.202000927.
  • Greer A, Zakimi N, Butler A, Ferencz S. (2021). Simple possession as a ‘tool’: Drug law enforcement practices among police officers in a context of depenalization in British Columbia, Canada. International Journal of Drug Policy. doi: 10.1016/j.drugpo.2021.103471.
  • McLeod KE, Butler A, Young JT, et al. (2020). Global Prison Healthcare Governance and Health Equity: A Critical Lack of Evidence. American Journal of Public Health, 110, 303-308. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2019.305465

SELECTED AWARDS AND GRANTS

  • 2023-2026. Policing in the context of decriminalization in British Columbia: A qualitative study. Center for Mental Health and Addiction. [Co-Principal Investigator with Dr. Alissa Greer]
  • 2023-2024. Estimating the number of children who experience parental incarceration and describing their health status using linked whole population data for five Canadian provinces: The CHIRP (Children with IncarceRated Parents) Study. Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Operating Grant: Data Analysis Using Existing Databases. [Co-Investigator, PI: Dr. Fiona Kouyoumdjian]
  • 2022 Trainee Award: Transforming prisons and improving health outcomes for people who use drugs: An evaluation of BC’s prison-based therapeutic community. Michael Smith Health Research BC [Principal Applicant]

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

  • Fundamentals of OCAP, First Nations Information Governance Centre, Algonquin College, 2021.
  • Certificate Program in University Teaching and Learning (CPUTL), Simon Fraser University, 2021.
  • Instructional Skills Workshop (ISW), Simon Fraser University, 2018.

 

 

 

Courses

Future courses may be subject to change.

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