The Children’s Koori Court, Australia’s first indigenous court for children, opened September 9 in Melbourne, and will begin sitting cases early in October, according to articles in The Herald Sun and The Australian. The Children’s Koori Court was established to reduce the overrepresentation of indigenous juveniles in Australia’s criminal justice system. Offenders must plead or be found guilty in order to enter the new court, where they will sit for sentencing with two Koori elders, their lawyer, a family member, and a magistrate. The informal setting is believed to be less culturally alienating for indigenous children, according to The Herald Sun.
State Attorney-General Rob Hulls said that indigenous juveniles are currently 16 times more likely than their non-indigenous peers to be in juvenile detention centers, The Australian reported. Hulls also explained that the presence of elders and family members is supposed to reconnect Koori individuals to their culture and encourage them to consider the consequences of their actions from the perspective of the law and their own indigenous community.
