Australian Human Rights Commission Current issues and good practices in prison management, 16 November 2023 23. The Commission echoes this sentiment and continues to advocate that ‘sustainable investments must be made into resourcing and supporting [First Nations] communities to lead, design, implement and evaluate the solutions they know work instead of investments into additional punitive measures such as policing and prison systems’.37 2.4 First Nations deaths in custody 24. The Australian Institute of Criminology reports that there have been 81 deaths in prison, police, and youth custody since 1 January 2023 (inclusive of 16 First Nations people).38 Cumulative Total of First Nations Deaths in Custody 20222023 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 2022 2023 39 25. The number of First Nations deaths in custody since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCADIC) currently totals 556.40 The Australian Institute of Criminology has noted that the rate of First Nations deaths in custody ‘has consistently been lower in the most recent 10-year period compared with the previous two decades’.41 26. Notwithstanding this trend, the Commission acknowledges that ‘the regularity with which these [First Nations] deaths occur, and the publicity that attaches to them, especially when the death has been the result of misconduct, neglect or other egregious behaviours, breeds a deep fear of incarceration in the community’.42 7