{"id":804551,"date":"2026-07-16T19:22:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T19:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/804551\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T19:22:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T19:22:16","slug":"aboriginal-man-21-dies-at-clarence-correctional-centre-in-grafton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/804551\/","title":{"rendered":"Aboriginal man, 21, dies at Clarence Correctional Centre in Grafton"},"content":{"rendered":"

A 21-year-old Aboriginal man has died at a privately operated prison in northern New South Wales.<\/p>\n

British multinational Serco, which runs Clarence Correctional Centre near Grafton, released a brief statement confirming the man had died on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Warning: Indigenous readers may find the content of this story distressing.<\/p>\n

Serco said it extended its sympathy to “the family, and the wider Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community”.<\/p>\n

Serco declined requests for an interview and said it was unable to comment while investigations are underway.<\/p>\n

No further details have been provided regarding the circumstances of the man’s death.<\/p>\n

The matter is being investigated by Serco and NSW Police.<\/p>\n

The Aboriginal Legal Service said NSW was “in the midst of a deaths in custody crisis”.<\/p>\n

“This tragedy is being fuelled by an unprecedented increase in the number of Aboriginal adults being forced into prisons and police cells,” it said in a statement.<\/p>\n

“Right now, one in 23 Aboriginal men in NSW is incarcerated.<\/p>\n

“The blame for this crisis must be placed firmly on the Minns Government, which is presiding over the highest numbers and rates of Aboriginal imprisonment in the state’s history.”<\/p>\n

All deaths in custody are referred to the NSW coroner for a compulsory public inquiry.<\/p>\n

The Australian Institute of Criminology’s real-time dashboard shows there have been 74 deaths in custody this year, including 20 Indigenous deaths.<\/p>\n

Previous death in custody<\/p>\n

Last month a coroner criticised medical staff<\/a> at the correctional centre for failing to provide adequate treatment to a non-Indigenous prisoner who died.<\/p>\n

The coronial inquest heard 29-year-old Dictor Dongrin was left unattended for 21 hours and was suffering from alcohol withdrawal when he died in the prison’s medical unit in June 2022.<\/p>\n

Serco told the inquest it has implemented a range of new measures since then.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The Clarence Correctional Centre opened in 2020 with capacity for 1,700 inmates. (ABC North Coast: Leah White)<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in an inspection report tabled in state parliament in April this year, the NSW Inspector of Custodial Services raised multiple concerns about the Clarence Correctional Centre.<\/p>\n

The report highlighted regular lockdowns caused by staff shortages, a lack of resources to address mental health issues, and noted that drug and alcohol teams were “similarly overwhelmed”.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The report said there was no Aboriginal health worker at the time of the inspection, “despite 37 per cent of the [prison] population being Aboriginal”.<\/p>\n

It said there were “almost no opportunities for Aboriginal people to connect with and learn about their culture”.<\/p>\n

The inspector made 47 recommendations for the improvement of services at Clarence Correctional Centre.<\/p>\n

In response to the report Serco said there was “always scope to strengthen welfare support” and that it remained “committed to the wellbeing of all people in custody”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 21-year-old Aboriginal man has died at a privately operated prison in northern New South Wales. British multinational…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":804552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,377745,377744,21167,44,16621],"class_list":["post-804551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-calrence-correctional-centre-death","tag-clarence-correctional-centre","tag-death-in-custody","tag-news","tag-serco"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=804551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/804552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=804551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=804551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=804551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}