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A 19-year-old man has died in a Sydney prison unit that an independent watchdog previously recommended be closed because it “simply cannot provide a safe environment”.

The man was on remand, awaiting a hearing or sentencing, when he hung himself on Sunday in Long Bay correctional centre’s Metropolitan Special Programs Centre (MSPC).

Corrective Service NSW said “staff commenced a medical response, but he was pronounced deceased by paramedics on Sunday”.

“Corrective Services NSW and NSW police are investigating. Any death in custody is immediately reported to the NSW coroner and subject to a compulsory, rigorous public inquiry,” a spokesperson said.

Last year, there was a record number of adults being held on remand in New South Wales and a record number of Indigenous adults in custody. There was a record number of Indigenous deaths in custody.

The inspector for custodial services in December recommended three out of five units at Long Bay – including the MSPC – be permanently closed after it was inspected in 2023 and 2024.

The report described the rooms in MSPC as being run-down and small, with little natural light or ventilation. It said the accommodation wings were “susceptible to weather conditions and extreme temperatures”.

“We observed mouldy walls, rusted furniture and evidence of vermin,” the inspector, Fiona Rafter, wrote. She observed “ligature points in cells across all areas”.

“The age and condition of MSPC means it simply cannot provide a safe environment for people in custody, particularly those with needs arising from disability, age and frailty and mental illness,” the report stated. “We have no choice but to recommend its closure.”

Corrections provided its formal response to the report in early March. It is not yet publicly available.

There were 39 deaths in custody in NSW in 2025. Of those, 12 were First Nations people, a record high. Twenty-two per cent of the overall deaths were by hanging, despite millions being invested to remove ligature points.

The department has an existing $16m program under way that began in the 2023-24 financial year to remove all ligature points from cells over four years across the correctional system.

A Guardian Australia investigation found last year that there had been 10 hanging deaths from two hanging points at Long Bay correctional centre between 1995 and 2017. Corrective services said at the time it had now been addressed in “several wings at Long Bay” by the installation of mesh screens.

Sue Higginson, the Greens justice spokesperson, said she was “absolutely broken” to hear of Sunday’s death.

She moved in the NSW parliament in February for the MSCPC and other units to be closed, but the motion was blocked by the government. She said at the time the decision to keep them open was putting “lives at risk”.

“My thoughts are with the family of this young man,” she said on Wednesday.

The minister for corrections, Anoulack Chanthivong, declined to comment because an investigation was under way.

• In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org