In 2025, an assessment from the University of Washington found that Pierce County, Washington, had lower rates of recidivism than the statewide average. The county has been seeking to reform its juvenile justice system since the early 2000s, and it seems to be working. NWPB’s Lauren Gallup joined host Phineas Pope to discuss.
Phineas Pope: Pierce County created what's called Opportunity-Based Probation. Tell us what that means and how it's different from typical probation programs.
Lauren Gallup: The way this program works is the Pierce County Juvenile Court refers a young person to an organization for placement in one of these community programs.
There's lots of different options from skateboarding and graphic design to boat building or even glass blowing. And these are community groups that already do programming that's specific for youth. The staff really know how to work with and support young people. And then through participation in that, young people on probation learn new skills and also how to make better choices.
They can also earn some incentives and even get an early review hearing for their case. This is very different from the more punitive model of probation which really was based on how adults move through the probation system. Opportunity-Based Probation rewards positive behaviors, and it helps young people make goals and then also set about accomplishing them.
There's community mentors and there's these positive peer groups that are at their community program sites that they get to interact with. Kate Cunningham is a clinical psychologist and faculty member at the University of Washington and was on the team that created Opportunity-Based Probation.
Kate Cunningham: The probation team instead will kind of wrap around the kid, figure out what's going on and what additional supports they need so that they can be successful.
Pope: How did the county decide that this was the direction to take youth probation?
Gallup: I talked with Kevin Williams, a probation manager for the county. He's been there since 2000, so he's seen a lot of reforms to the juvenile justice system. A little over a decade ago:
Kevin Williams: ...What we wanted to do was partner with the research community to operationalize adolescent brain development, so that's where Opportunity-Based Probation came from.
Gallup: The program was created in partnership with the University of Washington and was informed by youth brain development research. Cunningham, with the University of Washington, says that something that informed this style of probation is that young people are highly influenced by the environment they're in and also who they're around.
Kate Cunningham: A big part of it is increasing community support around the young person.
Pope: You talked with some people from community organizations who partner with Pierce County to offer Opportunity-Based Probation. What are they seeing?
Gallup: All the community partners that I spoke with really spoke highly of the program and how they see change in the young people that participate in it.
Kimberly Keith is the executive director of Hilltop Artists, which offers a program for court connected young women and girls. She’s been working with this population since the early 2000s and says having more programs like these has helped to reduce detention. She also says the young women in these programs learn to build relationships with their peers and mentors through the program.
Kimberly Keith: That's what makes the program powerful and that's why girls wanna stay from session to session.
Pope: Are there other Opportunity-Based Probation programs in the Northwest or around the country that you found while reporting this story?
Gallup: The concept of Opportunity-Based Probation in Pierce County is something that was created very specifically for the county, working with systems that were already in place and community organizations that were here and could start to offer support in partnership with county leaders and the University of Washington.
At the time that it was created, the University of Washington was really interested in this because there wasn't a similar type of program that they could find that was informed by adolescent brain development in the United States.
Kate Cunningham: We definitely … do get questions sometimes, ‘Hey, can we get … that manual for OBP and apply that in our county down here?’ … And that's something that we circle back to, is that, yes, there are totally principles that can be applied, and this specific model … was created specifically for Pierce County.
Gallup: The University of Washington actually did start another similar Opportunity-Based Probation site in Hartford County, Connecticut, in 2021. But I'm not sure there's a ton of information about how far along that program is and what success they've seen, if any.
Pope: Are there challenges in maintaining this program, and what's next for Pierce County?
Gallup: Programs like these require funding, and the county provides some of that funding to the community-based organizations that act as sites for young people on probation. The county did have to reduce some of this funding in its most recent budget cycle, but said it's working with the organizations to ensure this doesn't impact the youth they serve. That's something that we might be following closely in the future to see if when the funding changes, the impacts change as well.
Note: This transcript has been edited for clarity.
