Georgetown researchers identify graves of over 1,000 children at youth detention sites

Researchers with Georgetown University's Center for Youth Justice have identified the graves of more than 1,000 children across 29 states, according to an NPR report published on 7 October 2026. Since February, the center has worked to identify children who died at 40 reform schools and youth detention centers nationwide, as well as any surviving family members, as part of its Forgotten Children Initiative.

NPR reported that the largest burial site is near the House of Reformation, which now operates as the Cheltenham Youth Detention Center in Maryland. More than 230 Black boys were found buried in the woods across the street from the facility, according to NPR. The graves are in a wooded area adjacent to the Maryland Veterans Cemetery.

Veronica Spears told NPR that a letter informed her family that her grandfather had a brother who was held at a reformation institution and died at the age of 12. NPR reported that her great-uncle, Arthur Hamilton, is one of the Black youth who died while incarcerated at the House of Reformation and Instruction for Colored Children, which operated from 1870 to 1937 in Cheltenham, Md. Spears' family is one of 16 that researchers have linked to children who died at the institution.

Chuck Copeland, Spears' cousin, read one headstone during a visit in late September, according to NPR: "Thirteen years old from Baltimore, Mark Davis, 1885." The House of Reformation was established in 1870 and was the first juvenile detention facility for Black children in the American South, according to the Georgetown researchers. Researchers found that children as young as 5 years old were incarcerated for criminal offenses and for non-criminal reasons, including being poor, homeless or orphaned.

According to a report from the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services cited by NPR, boys at the institution were forced to work without food and were disciplined by white guards with a "brass-studded belt." In the 1920s, the boys were leased to neighboring farms, with the institution taking most, if not all, of their pay, according to the report. Baltimore City labor union investigators described conditions in the reformatory's broom factory in 1926 as a "firetrap," according to the report.

NPR reported that the Georgetown researchers have not discovered why Arthur Hamilton was incarcerated at the institution and have not found his remains at the burial ground. The family was told he died of tuberculosis, according to NPR.