The end of 2025 marks 34 years since the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, a landmark inquiry that delivered more than 300 recommendations aimed at protecting some of the most vulnerable people in Australia — those in state custody, many of whom experience trauma, disability and mental illness.
Three decades on, the outcomes the Royal Commission sought to prevent have intensified rather than diminished.
Of the 113 deaths in custody recorded in 2024-25, 33 were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people — the highest number since reliable national records began in 1979-80. Of those deaths, 26 occurred in prison custody, up from 18 the previous year.
Since the Royal Commission, at least 618 Indigenous people have died in custody, according to the Australian Institute of Criminology.
Independent Victorian Senator Lidia Thorpe has been outspoken about deaths in custody. This month, she called the latest data a shocking indictment "in a country that claims to be Closing the Gap".
"In these horrific figures, I see violent colonialism perpetrated by hollow politicians desperate for votes and power," the Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung woman said. "How many more of our people do we need to bury before governments stop sacrificing our lives for political gain?"
Each death represents an individual with family, community and future. Yet public commentary following many deaths in custody frequently implies incarceration diminishes a person's right to safety — or even life itself. The absence of sustained outrage across much of the media is, in itself, shameful.
"These are not mere statistics. Each of these deaths represents a person whose life mattered and whose loss is felt deeply by families, loved ones and communities across the state," NSW State Coroner Teresa O'Sullivan said this year.
"They are individuals whose deaths demand independent and careful scrutiny, respect and accountability."
That level of scrutiny, however, remains inconsistent.
Hanging points — repeatedly identified as preventable risks — continue to exist across custodial facilities, despite explicit Royal Commission recommendations for their removal.
A Guardian Australia investigation identified 20 deaths by hanging in New South Wales linked to known ligature points that had not been removed. Further deaths were recorded in South Australia and Western Australia under similar circumstances.
This year, National Indigenous Times reported on women in Victorian prisons being held in extended lockdowns and being excluded from cultural and rehabilitation programs; not due to misconduct, but because of staffing shortages. The consequence is prolonged confinement without purpose or support.
Overcrowding and prolonged isolation remain entrenched features of incarceration across the country — despite evidence showing the horrific outcomes they often bring. While governments dispute the use of solitary confinement — often using alternative, Kafkaesque terminology such as "separation" or "isolation" — it does little to change the lived reality for detainees or its well-documented harms.
What is clear 34 years on is that deaths in custody are not isolated incidents; tragedies no one could see coming.
Instead, they reflect systemic failure.
"The racist 'tough on crime' laws we're seeing nationwide were always going to lead to more deaths," Senator Thorpe said this month. "We warned that this would happen. When prisons are full, more of our people die."
When Kumanjayi White, a 24-year-old Warlpiri man with a disability under state guardianship, died after being restrained by plain-clothed Northern Territory police officers, initial official responses focused on his alleged criminality — something he will never be able to answer for in court — rather than explaining the circumstances of his death, which remain unclear more than six months later.
When 16-year-old Cleveland Dodd died in custody in Western Australia, it occurred amid public rhetoric that characterised children in detention as lazy or dangerous, despite many living with profound trauma and disability.
As Judge Denis Reynolds, WA's longest-serving President of the Children's Court, told the inquest into Cleveland's death: The government has no will to change.
When Veronica Nelson died alone in a "vomit-ridden" prison cell while on remand, the Coroner described the bail laws that placed her there as an "unmitigated disaster". After years of campaigning by Veronica's family, the laws were changed.
Yet this year, Premier Jacinta Allan concluded those changes to the "unmitigated disaster" bail laws were, in hindsight, "wrong". It prompted Veronica's mother, Aunty Donna Nelson, to call the Premier's comments "an insult to my daughter's memory".
"Returning to discriminatory legislation towards our people will undoubtedly result in another mother losing their child," she said. With the Victorian Government this month passing laws which can see children as young as 14 face life in prison, Aunty Donna's words will likely prove to be heartbreakingly prescient.
Successive governments have expressed regret after every death in custody, while continuing to expand remand populations. Despite longstanding recommendations that incarceration be a last resort, bail restrictions across states and territories have driven sharp increases in pre-trial detention. All governments — Labor and Liberal — are guilty of this.
In the Northern Territory, nearly half of all people in custody are held on remand — many in watch houses described by the acting Ombudsman as unfit for human habitation. Those laws are now subject to a High Court challenge.
Less than two-thirds of the Royal Commission's recommendations have been implemented. While the Commonwealth holds constitutional authority to hold states accountable for Closing the Gap mechanisms — especially to set minimum legislated standards for the treatment of children and young people; federal action has been limited.
A naturally cautious Prime Minister, along with the Attorney General, have done little to nothing to protect Indigenous people in custody, leaving the Indigenous Affairs minister to constantly field questions from journalists. Bland criticism of the states' failing to enact Closing the Gap commitments has been followed with exactly zero consequences.
Recent responses to other forms of violence demonstrate that governments are capable of swift and decisive reform when the political will exists. In the wake of the Bondi terrorist attack, legislative responses are rapidly advancing. Following the Port Arthur massacre, Prime Minister John Howard moved in a similarly fast fashion, enacting widely-lauded, sweeping national gun law reforms, despite opposition from his own side of politics.
These horrific tragedies show systemic, uniform and rapid change is possible. It shouldn't take mass casualties for this to be the case.
More than 30 years after the Royal Commission, the continued rise in Indigenous deaths in custody simply shows the sustained failure of all governments to translate inquiry, evidence and recommendation into practice.
The data is clear, the risks are well understood, and the consequences are documented in coronial findings; year after year. What remains is for governments to be prepared to treat the safety of people in custody as a matter of obligation rather than discretion.
