"We don't have in western Sydney any drug rehabilitation service that is a residential rehabilitation service," Ms Duncombe told the inquiry last week. "Every single one of our young people who's elected to go down that path has had to travel."

Most of the rehabilitation programs were located outside of Sydney, including in Coffs Harbour, the ACT and Dubbo. There was one residential treatment program in Randwick.

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Ms Duncombe said places in residential treatment programs were "severely limited" and "we have an enormous number of kids in western Sydney who would have accessed drug rehabilitation services earlier, and that would have saved victims and the community from crime had they been able to go earlier".

The lack of treatment services close to an Indigenous person's family could prove an insurmountable stumbling block because their family might have no "capacity, financial or otherwise, to travel to see them", she said.

"They feel as though they're being sentenced if you like to a six-month or a three-month absence from family and supporters," Ms Duncombe said.

Based on her own review of case files, Ms Duncombe said more than half or eight of the 13 young Indigenous people currently appearing before the court in Surry Hills had reported using ice or MDMA, also known as ecstasy.

Of the 150 referrals to the Youth Koori Court since its inception, about 35 or just under 25 per cent had reported using ice or ecstasy, or both. But Ms Duncombe said "I would imagine it's much more than 25 per cent" as the figures were based on self-reporting and action plans specifically identifying "problematic" drug use.

The Koori Court aims to divert young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander offenders from prison by tackling the causes of crime.

"In the Youth Koori Court in particular ... generally we are dealing with young children who are the product of intergenerational trauma," Ms Duncombe said. "Their great-grandparents, grandparents, mothers and fathers have all experienced intergenerational trauma and we need as a society to do something significant about that."