Overview

• New South Wales has recorded 12 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander deaths in custody so far in 2025, the highest total for a single year.
• State Coroner Teresa O’Sullivan called the toll “profoundly distressing” and pledged impartial, transparent, culturally sensitive inquests for each death.
• BOCSAR data show 4,386 Aboriginal adults in custody in June, an 18.9% rise over five years, with 45.6% on remand as remand numbers rose 63%.
• The NSW government says it has invested $16 million to remove ligature points in prisons and commissioned a thematic review due next year chaired by Professor James Ward.
• Aboriginal legal and advocacy groups describe a preventable crisis linked to punitive laws and discriminatory policing, with media also reporting four Indigenous deaths in police operations this year.