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Indigenous Deaths in Custody Reach Four-Decade High, Sparking Renewed Calls for Justice
A new report revealing the highest number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander deaths in custody in over four decades has ignited fresh grief and outrage, with advocates and families saying systemic change remains elusive. The australian Institute of Criminology’s national deaths in custody report, released Wednesday, documented 113 deaths in custody during the 2024-2025 period, including 33 First Nations people.
The figures represent the largest number of Indigenous deaths in custody since the inception of the national monitoring program in 1979-1980.As of June 30th of this year, a total of 600 Indigenous people have died in custody since the landmark 1991 royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody, with the AIC’s real-time dashboard currently reporting 617 deaths.
“Nothing has changed,” stated Natasha Ugle,the widow of Wayne Ugle,a Noongar man who died at Hakea Prison in Perth in November 2023. “We go and we do all these rallies,we do all these marches…we try and get change and ask for change but nothing happens.” Ugle described a constant stream of notifications on the Hakea Prison Facebook page informing her of yet another death in custody,a cycle she finds emotionally overwhelming.
Wayne and natasha Ugle shared over 25 years of marriage and raised nine children – three biological and six foster children. An inquest into his death has yet to be scheduled.
The escalating crisis is fueled by preventable factors, according to Nerita Waight, CEO of the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service. “Racist policing practices and harmful systems built on oppression continue to fail First Nations families and communities,” she said.”The reality is that police and prison custody is not a safe place for Aboriginal people. This is what the royal commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody found in 1991.”
Disproportionate Impact and Rising Self-Harm
The report highlights the disproportionate impact of the justice system on Indigenous Australians. Indigenous people accounted for 29% of all deaths in prison custody last year, the highest proportion recorded as 2002-2023. This marks the third consecutive year that the proportion of Indigenous deaths in prison custody has surpassed the 40-year average of 19%.
Of the 26 indigenous deaths in prison custody where details were available, a staggering 53% were attributed to self-harm – the highest number as 1980. This trend was even more pronounced for those on remand, with 75% of deaths with a known cause linked to hanging.
The practice of removing hanging points from cells was a key recommendation of the 1991 royal commission. In June, Federal Attorney General Michelle rowland acknowledged that the number of deaths in cells with known hanging points was “unacceptable.”
Systemic Failures and Calls for Urgent Action
Megan Krakouer,a Menang Noongar woman and social justice advocate,characterized the high death toll as a “predictable outcome” of governments failing to provide adequate support,oversight,and culturally informed services for First Nations
