Quotes of the Day

He's just 22, but already toby has spent eight years in and out of institutions and jail. His life has been a hellish rollercoaster of heroin and crime, and doing time has done nothing to halt it. Today he's been back in court: too many missed appointments for a drug treatment program have put his bail at risk. But he's been given another chance, perhaps his last, and he knows it. "I've never had a better opportunity than I've got today," he says. "It makes you think people have faith in you."

Repeat offenders rarely have kind words for the legal system. What makes Toby's praise even more unusual is that he's an Aboriginal man in a nation where indigenous people and the justice system have long had an unhappy relationship. Aborigines, or Kooris as they're called in Victoria, are the most over-represented racial group in the state's jails: 12 times more likely than other Victorians to be in prison. But Toby has just come out of Courtroom Four in the outer-Melbourne Broadmeadows Magistrates Court, where a radical new approach to curbing indigenous crime is under way. Here, every two weeks conventional hearings are replaced by the Koori Court, which brings the law and indigenous people together in an informal setting and, the court says, "tailors sentencing orders to the cultural needs of Koori offenders."

The hope is that if the court can make Kooris feel better understood and address the reasons for their law-breaking, they might finally turn their backs on crime. Halfway through the two-year pilot program, signs from the only metropolitan Aboriginal court in Australia to be established by an act of parliament are encouraging - of 80 defendants who've been sentenced, only five have offended again. Similar results are being seen in two regional pilots, and a Children's Court is now planned.

Unlike mainstream courtrooms, this one is hung with Aboriginal paintings; in place of a bench and witness box, comfortable swivel chairs surround an oval table. Magistrate Ann Collins sits with two Koori elders, a police prosecutor, the Koori corrections officer, the court's Koori justice worker and the offender, who is introduced to everyone. Only those who plead guilty to offences less serious than domestic violence, and who want to participate, come before the Koori Court. Once they do, they're encouraged to explain their actions, as are attending friends and relatives. Collins' sentencing options, including jail time, are no different from those of any other magistrate. But as elder Norma Langford says, "the way of getting there is completely different."

Substance abuse is at the heart of almost every case. Several of those before the court today are intellectually impaired as well as addicted to drugs, including one who pleads guilty to 39 charges of aggravated burglary - a youth seemingly lost to crime. But those around the table search for solutions. Which Koori program could help him? How would he attend? Aboriginal justice worker Terrie Stewart, who advises Collins on programs that can form part of community-based corrections orders, says cases here move more slowly than in other courts, perhaps lasting several months while various alternatives are tried. "We look at things that assist people," she says. "Some work. Some don't, so you try something different." Like Toby, Ian is in court for missing appointments at a drug-treatment program. He and his partner Lorna are raising nine children from previous relationships and fighting drug habits. Lorna says Ian needs the court's censure as much as its help: "You have to face your problems in there because you're asked, Why are you here? and there are elders staring at you, so you can't lie. The way they look at you makes you sit straight." While they wait in the foyer, elder Norma Langford scolds 20-year-old Nicholas, convicted of throwing objects at a passing car. "You didn't have any respect for other people's property, did you?" admonishes the 74-year-old. "That's a lesson we have to teach you - you can't destroy people's property and get away with it." Though elders can be consulted about sentencing, their main task is pulling trouble-makers into line and reminding them of their community obligations. Joe Narbaluk, head of the Enmaraleek Aboriginal association, says one offender was so struck when elders recognized him and urged him to emulate his football-player relatives that he gave up drugs for footy training: "In a normal court no one would have had the opportunity to attract his attention like that."

Sergeant Steve Lythgo has lost count of how many Koori defendants he's seen in 18 years as a police prosecutor. But he remembers their mood: "They had no input other than speaking to their lawyer before the hearing, and half the time they didn't seem to know what was going on." Here, magistrate Collins explains her rulings informally, without jargon. "The fact they are speaking to us," she says, "means they're more likely to understand they need to comply with the order." As his young son listens, Ian tells Collins he missed the appointments because his ex-partner has been threatening to kill their children. He is jubilant when Collins gives him a final chance to stick to his bail terms.

So many Kooris are now choosing to be sentenced by the court that it's booked out weeks ahead. But if they think they'll get an easier ride, says lawyer Julia Love, they're wrong. Many of her clients "feel quite comfortable in jail," she says. Having to complete drug treatment is far tougher: "It's a real commitment and it's confronting." Nevertheless, the court has critics. One of the fiercest, Q.C. David Galbally, has said it is seen as "giving a special favour to a group of people." Community spokesman Narbaluk says a soft touch doesn't help anyone: "It's foremost in everyone's mind that we cannot allow this to become too lenient, because that will defeat the purpose." Prosecutor Lythgo says he sometimes thinks an offender should have been jailed, but "they've been to jail before and it hasn't achieved anything, so what else can we do?" At a recent public meeting, Broadmeadows regional coordinating magistrate Bob Kumar was asked, not for the first time, why the court was needed. After repeating the statistics about Aboriginal over-representation in jails, Kumar says he told the crowd, "Most of us migrated here: we came with our eyes open. But the law has been forced on Kooris."

Two weeks after his appearance, Ian's drug treatment coordinator says he's kept every appointment. Toby is also off drugs, paying his rent, and found work after court staff vouched for him. "The court's made me realize I can survive on my own," he says. He strokes the head of his sleeping eight-month-old son. "Now I just want to raise him the best I can." If the Koori Court experiment succeeds, this child and many others may never need to enter a court house again.

• Lisa Clausen / Broadmeadows
• Aboriginal lawbreakers in Victoria can now ask to be sentenced with input from fellow Kooris