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Inside a small corner building in downtown Tacoma, there’s a skatepark — Alchemy Skateboarding. It’s a place for kids and teens to hang out, check out new gear and of course, skateboard. But it’s also a place where young people can get a fresh start.
“Skateboarding is really unique in that way, in that failure is not an option, it's a necessity,” said Taylor Woodruff, who runs the skate shop and indoor skatepark.
Alchemy Skateboarding is one of a number of community organizations in Pierce County that partners with the county’s juvenile court to offer a program called Opportunity-Based Probation.
It’s one tool that the county has utilized to transform its juvenile justice system. The program connects participants to prosocial community groups, activities and supports, instead of a more traditional, punitive probation model.
High rates of youth crime and a crowded detention center led Pierce County to seek reform for its juvenile justice system in the early 2000s. Now, it appears these programs are working.
A 2025 assessment from the University of Washington found that Pierce County has lower rates of recidivism than the statewide average. Within a year of being charged and placed on probation, only 18% of youth had committed a new crime. The university compared that to available data for the state, which reported that 23% of youth in Washington committed a new crime after 18 months.
Hilltop Artists is another community partner involved in the probation program. Hilltop Artists' executive director, Dr. Kimberly Keith, attributes much of the reductions in detention and recidivism to youth-based community programming.
“Young people are learning how to use their time and energy differently,” Keith said.
Now, every juvenile who goes through probation will go through this program in the county.
How it started
The county created Opportunity-Based Probation with the University of Washington through a 2015 grant from the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Young people participate in community programs that reinforce positive behavior change rather than the adult probation model, which is more punitive.
In a controlled study published in January 2023, UW found that youth on Opportunity-Based Probation were statistically less likely to reoffend within six months, compared to a matched sample of youth receiving adult-like probation.
Kate Cunningham is a clinical psychologist and clinical faculty member at the University of Washington. She is also a member of CoLab, a University of Washington-based think tank working on youth wellness. Something that informed Opportunity-Based Probation, Cunningham said, is that young people are highly influenced by the environment they’re in and who they're around.
“A big part of it is increasing community support around the young person,” Cunningham said.
Pierce County Juvenile Court refers a young person to an organization, like Hilltop Artists, for placement in a program. Through participation, young people on probation learn new skills and how to make better choices.
Giving young people something to do
Hilltop Artists offers Arts Connect, a program for court-connected girls and young women. The girls go to the program two days a week for 10 weeks. Guest artists teach each session, and subjects covered include glass making, poetry, collage and fiber arts.
Then, there’s a shared meal each week.
“I can't really stress how important that is, to have a family-style meal,” Keith said.
Not only is the meal about making sure the participants get something to eat, but the girls also share their “happies and crappies” with each other.
“Having an opportunity to just talk about what's making you feel good about yourself, what are the challenges and struggles that you're having, that is really powerful,” Keith said.
Moments like that throughout the program help the young women learn to build relationships with peers and mentors. While the participants are learning specific skills for glassblowing and other arts, the lessons go beyond the activity.
“The point is acquiring the skills involved with learning to blow glass — communication, team work, critical thinking, mutual respect — the life skills all young people need to be successful,” Keith said.
At Alchemy, Opportunity-Based Probation participants learn skills ranging from how to skateboard, to designing graphics and clothes.
“We really try to tailor the program to fit whatever the person in the program is interested in,” Woodruff said.
They also get to design and create their own board, which they can earn credit throughout the 10 weeks to purchase at the end of the program. That’s meant to incentivize them.
“The goal is that they get plugged in with a community partner and a place where they have access to whatever things they might need to kind of change that direction that they're on,” he said.
Alchemy serves about 40 youths a year in the program. Since Alchemy started offering Opportunity-Based Probation with Pierce County, Woodruff said they’ve likely served over 300 youth.
What could be better?
As a whole, there are still limitations to the county’s juvenile justice system. According to Cunningham, there needs to be more transportation support and wider distribution of programs across the sprawling, mostly rural county.
“Most programs are located near the urban center of the county in Tacoma, and there are limited spots for in-demand mental health and counseling programs,” a 2025 assessment of the Pierce County Juvenile justice system by the University of Washington reported.
There are also racial disparities in how young people move through Pierce County’s juvenile court programs, with Black youth referred to the court five times more than white youth, according to the UW audit.
At the end of 2025, the county finalized its 2026-2027 biennial budget, which included reduced funding to some of the community partners that offer these programs. Jinnie Horan, public information specialist for the Pierce County Juvenile Court, said the county is working with these organizations to ensure that the kids who are served won’t be impacted.
A different way of doing probation
Many community-based organizations have stepped up for court-involved young people to provide them with positive mentorship, education, a social circle and sometimes, even a job.
“There really was no good model that we could find out in the wild of probation departments that were really trying to do a developmental approach to juvenile probation,” said Sarah Walker, the director of the CoLab for Community and Behavioral Health Policy.
Cunningham said Opportunity-Based Probation is informed by adolescent brain development, with the understanding that youth decision-making and emotional regulation skills are still developing.
Through Opportunity-Based Probation, youth have the chance to earn incentives and even have their cases heard and considered sooner, if approved by the court, Horan said.
Horan said instead of emphasizing what a young person did wrong, this model emphasizes what they can do right. The program rewards effort, growth and accountability in developmentally appropriate ways.
