With more First Nations people dying in custody in NSW than in any year on record, the NSW Bar Association has issued a stark warning, urging the government to implement meaningful reforms immediately.
NSW has recorded the highest number of Indigenous deaths in custody in a single year, prompting a rare public statement from the State Coroner, who called the milestone “profoundly distressing”.
In an open letter, State Coroner Teresa O’Sullivan revealed that 12 Indigenous individuals have died in NSW corrective services custody since the start of the year, while a further four died during police operations.
O’Sullivan stressed that these deaths should not be seen as “mere statistics”, urging people to recognise that “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”.
“They are individuals whose deaths demand independent and careful scrutiny, respect and accountability,” O’Sullivan said.
Data presented by Susan Higginson, a member of the Legislative Council, in a notice of motion underlined the scale of the crisis, revealing that over the past five years, the number of Aboriginal people in NSW prisons has increased by 18.9 per cent, while incarceration of non-Aboriginal people has dropped by 12.5 per cent.
During the same period, she revealed that the number of Aboriginal people held on remand – before conviction – surged by 63 per cent.
The NSW Bar Association has expressed full support for the coroner’s concerns, highlighting that these deaths represent not only “personal tragedies” but also a profound failure of “public policy”.
The professional body called out that it is the responsibility of the NSW government to “address the over-representation of First Nations people in the criminal justice system”.
This issue is far from new. In 1991, the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody identified the over-representation of First Nations people in the justice system as a key driver of these deaths.
Yet, nearly 35 years after the commission’s recommendations, successive NSW governments have failed to implement the systemic reforms needed to prevent such tragedies.
Despite the National Agreement on Closing the Gap and a nationwide commitment to reducing the over-representation of First Nations people in the criminal justice system, the NSW Bar Association has warned that the state is “going backward at an unacceptable rate”.
In response to the ongoing and worsening crisis, the NSW Bar Association has called for urgent reforms to prevent further tragic deaths and reduce the number of First Nations people held in custody.
Among the proposed measures are bail reforms to reduce unnecessary remand, structural changes to the coronial system, and raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 14 years.
The professional body has warned that if such changes are not implemented, it will only lead to “further tragic and preventable deaths of First Nations people in custody”.
