Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains the name of an Indigenous person who has died.

The recent deaths in custody of two Indigenous men in the Northern Territory have provoked a deeply confronting question – will it ever end?

About 597 First Nations people have died in custody since the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.

This year alone, 12 Indigenous people have died – 31% of total custodial deaths.

The raw numbers are a tragic indictment of government failure to implement in full the Commission’s 339 recommendations.

We are potentially further away from resolving this crisis than we were 34 years ago.

Kumanjayi White was a vulnerable young Warlpiri man with a disability under a guardianship order. He stopped breathing while being restrained by police in an Alice Springs supermarket on May 27. His family is calling for all CCTV and body camera footage to be released.

Days later a 68-year-old Aboriginal Elder from Wadeye was taken to the Palmerston Watchhouse after being detained for apparent intoxication at Darwin airport. He was later transferred to a hospital where he died.

Both were under the care and protection of the state when they died. The royal commission revealed “so many”........

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