Shocking Surge: Indigenous Deaths in Custody Reach 45-Year High - A Call for Urgent Reform

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This article contains references to suicide/self-harm.

Australia has recorded its largest number of Indigenous deaths in custody in over 40 years.

Official figures show 33 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people died in custody across the nation in 2024-2025.

It is the highest number since 1979-80 and brings the total to 617 since the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.

Australian Institute of Criminology research manager Samantha Bricknell said this was largely driven by NSW recording nine deaths in 2024-25.

State coroner Teresa Harding pointed out the number of Indigenous deaths across NSW prisons in 2025 had reached 12 in October, calling it a “profoundly distressing milestone”.

The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) has witnessed an unusually high number of deaths in prison custody, according to recent findings. A total of 90 individuals lost their lives while incarcerated during this timeframe, with 26 of these being Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people.

“Most years there’s usually no Indigenous deaths or maybe one (in the ACT) but this year there’s three,” she said.

The report examines the 113 deaths that occurred in prison and police custody, as well as youth detention in 2024-25.

Despite making up only about four percent of Australia’s population, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander individuals constitute a disproportionately large percentage of the prison population, accounting for more than a third of those incarcerated.

One death was in youth detention.

Six of the 22 deaths in police custody were Indigenous people.

Over 40 per cent of deaths in prison were among people who had not been sentenced.

Indigenous people accounted for 29 per cent of all deaths in custody, an increase from 23 per cent in the previous 12 months and the highest proportion since 2002/03.

In the last three years, there has been a noticeable increase in the proportion of Indigenous deaths in custody, although the overall death rate among Indigenous prisoners has remained relatively stable, noted Bricknell.

Among the 26 recorded deaths, the causes were identified for 19 cases. These were evenly split between natural causes and self-inflicted incidents, as reported by Bricknell.

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She said it was important to view these statistics in the context of the over-incarceration of Indigenous people.

“It probably hasn’t changed because there’s been increasing prison population size,” she said.

“Three years is not enough to suggest a trend and we have had some considerable inter-year differences — it may well drop down.”

Cause of death was available for 19 of the 26 deaths in prison custody, with an equal number due to natural causes and self-inflicted, Bricknell said.

This is the highest number of self-inflicted Indigenous deaths in prison custody since 1979-80.

“That’s quite stark in terms of when you look at what the pattern has been,” she said.

“We have seen an unfortunate increase in self-inflicted deaths and they are predominantly, but not exclusively, of those who are on remand at the time.”

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