No anniversary celebrations for death in custody report

Australia's rate of Indigenous deaths in custody is at an almost half-century high. (Mark Evans/AAP PHOTOS)

It's been 35 years since a landmark report on Aboriginal deaths in custody, yet Indigenous Australians remain among the world's most incarcerated people.

A royal commission in 1991 set out 339 recommendations to address death-in-custody causes and over-representation of First Nations people in the criminal justice system.