A plan to give first-time offenders a chance to avoid criminal charges, the first of its kind in Australia, has been unveiled by West Australian Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan.

The Turning Point project will offer offenders the option to escape criminal charges if they sign a four-month agreement promising to stay out of trouble.

The agreements will only be offered to first-time offenders who commit low-harm crimes such as disorderly conduct, trespass, stealing a motor vehicle or possession of drugs or weapons.

The trial will begin almost immediately in Perth's south-east district, Cannington and Armadale, and in the Kimberley town of Broome over the next 12 months.

Mr O'Callaghan said the initiative should help reduce the high level of Aboriginal people ending up in the justice system.

"This is part of a number of things that are happening to divert people away from the justice system," he said.

"As you know particularly with Aboriginal people there's a high representation [in the system] so we're able to do something about that, but a lot of those low-harm crimes can be dealt with effectively without putting people into the court system."

Mr O'Callaghan said the program had two main benefits.

"One is that the person doesn't get a criminal record, so it's like a second chance," he said.

"Secondly, where it was trialled overseas, victim satisfaction has been very high because most victims are not satisfied with court outcomes for low-harm crime.

"What it means is that police enter into an agreement with the offender to abstain from doing certain things, so it's designed to address offending behaviour.

"If someone goes to court, it normally takes a while, they are normally in there for 15 minutes, they get a fine, they leave and victim satisfaction is quite low."

Police Minister Liza Harvey said the program aimed to keep people out of the system and prevent future offending.

"What we're trying to do is harness these first-time offenders and prevent them from re-offending," she said.

"We want to try and address the drivers of their criminal behaviour and have them change their behaviour so that they don't reoffend.

"What we hope to achieve it tying up less time of the courts in this process, but ultimately having people in the program not come to the attention of police because of their offending behaviour again."

Sexual, violent offences excluded

Ms Harvey said the program will be tailored to the offender.

"It's ultimately up to the police as to whether they'll offer Turning Point to an offender or not," she said.

"We've excluded the sexual offences and the violent offences involving weapons, graffiti vandalism and adult burglary offences.

"Domestic violence offences are excluded from this program as well.

"Obviously we'll need to tweak the program... we're not expecting that it's going to be operating in the same way to the South East Metro as it will in Broome."

Mr O'Callaghan said there were several conditions that could be included depending on an individual's circumstances.

"Basically the person is not allowed to reoffend and will have to apologise to the victim or make restitution if they can, and then address their offending behaviour," he said.

"So for argument's sake, if they are drug users and they've been charged with that they will be required to undergo therapy, or if they are causing trouble in a shopping centre they may be required to absent themselves from that shopping centre for the extent of the agreement."

The commissioner said he would decide whether the program should be rolled out across WA at the end of the 12-month trial.