Mapping a National Legacy of Youth Who Died in Custody
Introducing a New National Map and Research Brief
When the Forgotten Children Initiative launched in February 2026, burial sites associated with children who died in youth institutions were confirmed in only a small number of states. These included the burial ground at Maryland’s House of Reformation & Instruction for Colored Children, where research indicates that more than 230 children were buried, and burial sites associated with Florida’s Dozier School for Boys and a largely overlooked burial site associated with the New York Training School for Girls in Hudson, New York.
The Initiative set out to ask a larger question: How widespread was this history, and how many children who died in the custody of youth institutions were buried at or near the places where they were held? Research to date has identified burial sites associated with youth institutions in 29 states—more than half of the states in the nation—revealing a national legacy of children who died in custody and whose lives and deaths were largely lost from the nation’s historical record. Across those sites, research has identified over 1,000 children who died while in the custody of youth institutions and were buried at or near the institutions where they were held. The findings show that the stories uncovered in Florida, Maryland and New York were not isolated tragedies, but rather part of a much larger national history.
The institutions represented in the research span over two centuries. In some cases, the institutions where children died—or successor institutions on the same sites—remain in operation today.
The research is continuing and additional findings will be reported in the future.
Read the Brief
