Record High: Indigenous Custody Deaths Reach 45-Year Peak

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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”.

Bricknell noted that the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) experienced an unexpectedly high number of deaths during this time frame.

“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.

Within this period, ninety individuals passed away in prison custody, including 26 who were Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people.

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.

Although Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities constitute roughly four percent of the overall Australian population, they account for over one-third of the incarcerated population.

Bricknell highlighted that while there has been an increase in the proportion of Indigenous deaths in custody over the last three years, the rate of death among Indigenous prisoners has remained relatively stable.

For 19 of the 26 deaths in custody, the causes were identified, with an even split between natural causes and self-inflicted incidents, according to Bricknell.

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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