—Sylvester Loving, B1Daily

A damning new report confirms what Aboriginal families have been screaming for decades: nothing has changed. In 2024–25, 113 people died in custody, including 33 First Nations people—the highest number of Indigenous deaths since records began in 1979–80. That brings the toll since the 1991 royal commission to at least 600, or 617 if you trust the government’s own live dashboard. Either way, the number keeps climbing while promises rot.

Natasha Ugle, widow of Noongar man Wayne Ugle who died in WA’s Hakea Prison, says the grief is relentless and the system deaf. Families march, protest, beg for reform—and are met with silence. Her husband’s death still hasn’t even been examined by a coroner.

In 2024–25, 113 people died in custody, including 33 First Nations people—the highest number of Indigenous deaths since records began in 1979–80. That brings the toll since the 1991 royal commission to at least 600, or 617

Advocates and legal experts say the deaths are preventable, driven by racist policing, punitive prisons, and governments that ignore their own royal commission. More people are dying in prison than at any time in 40 years, Indigenous people now make up 29% of prison deaths, and self-harm—often by hanging in cells with known hanging points—accounts for over half of Indigenous prison deaths. Removing those hanging points was recommended in 1991. It’s 2025.

The verdict is brutal and familiar: custody is still not safe for Aboriginal people, governments keep failing, and families keep burying their dead—while being told, yet again, to wait.

—Sylvester Loving, B1Daily