First Nations advocates are warning that prisons in New South Wales could see more Indigenous deaths in custody than the record set in 2025, after two men died in NSW facilities in July 2026. At least seven First Nations people have died in custody across Australia so far this year, while the number of people in prison is at an all-time high.

Matthew Roberts, a 27-year-old Bundjalung, Yaegl and Gamilaroi man and father of two young boys, took his life inside Lithgow correctional centre on 7 July 2026. He had been held in prison since March while waiting for his case to go to trial — a situation called being "on remand." Corrective Services NSW said Roberts' death is being investigated and will be reviewed by the coroner (a coroner is an official who looks into how a death happened). His mother, Karlene Whitton, said Roberts had been on suicide watch during a previous period in prison some years ago. The Roberts family is being supported by the Dhadjowa Foundation, which is helping them fundraise for his funeral.

Eight days later, on 15 July 2026, a 21-year-old First Nations man died at Clarence correctional centre in New South Wales. Clarence is run by a private British company called Serco, which issued a statement offering sympathies to the man's family. A third death followed on 27 July 2026, when an 18-year-old woman died at Dame Phyllis Frost centre in Victoria.

The Dhadjowa Foundation, now supporting the Roberts family, was started by April Day, whose mother Tanya Day, a Yorta Yorta woman, died in custody in Victoria in 2017. The foundation's involvement connects Roberts' death to a longer history of families dealing with grief and pushing for change after losing relatives inside the Australian prison system.

These 2026 deaths follow a 2025 that was, by every measure, the worst year on record for First Nations deaths in custody. Twelve First Nations people died in NSW prisons in 2025, a new record for the state and the result of five years of rising deaths. Across Australia, 113 deaths in custody were recorded in 2024-25 — the highest number since records began in 1980. That figure included 22 deaths in police custody and 90 in prisons. There were 66 deaths in custody and police operations in 2025 overall, 18 more than the year before. Of the 39 deaths in Corrective Services custody in NSW in 2025, almost one in four were described as self-harm.

The tracking of these deaths is handled by the National Deaths in Custody Program (NDICP), which collects death reports from state and territory police services and prison agencies. That data is what advocates are using to sound the alarm about 2026.

The broader picture is one of a system under strain while prisons are already fuller than ever. Deaths in custody are tracking at or above the pace that produced the worst annual figures in four decades. Two of the three July 2026 deaths involved people who were either waiting for trial or held in a privately run prison, raising questions the coroner's process will need to address about duty of care, suicide prevention, and whether private companies should be managing high-risk inmates.

Roberts' history of suicide watch during a previous prison stay, as described by his mother, raises a specific question: was the risk to his life properly tracked and managed across the different times he was in prison? Corrective Services NSW has confirmed the coroner will consider his death. But the gap between a known risk factor and a fatal outcome is exactly what has driven decades of criticism of how Australian prisons operate. The fact that almost a quarter of deaths in NSW Corrective Services custody in 2025 were classified as self-harm gives that criticism hard numbers, not just personal stories.

The involvement of Serco at Clarence correctional centre, where the 21-year-old man died on 15 July, adds another layer. Serco issued a statement of sympathy, but the questions that come with privately run prisons — how transparent their oversight is, how well they are staffed, and how they handle Indigenous inmates — are likely to come up in any coroner's examination of that death.

For policymakers and practitioners working in Indigenous justice and corrections, the 2026 trajectory is stark. Seven deaths in the first seven months of the year, following the worst annual total since 1980, places Australia on a pace that could match or surpass the 2025 record. Advocates are not waiting for the year-end figures to make that case.