The state’s Department of Human Services repeatedly violated a policy mandating detailed reports when children die from suspected abuse or neglect, a requirement that experts say is needed to provide transparency, force accountability and prevent future tragedies.
The Baltimore Banner discovered the problem after filing a public records request for reports of all suspicious child deaths that occurred over a five-year period. The reports are known as Form 1080s. Officials denied the request in part because it would have been “unduly burdensome” to fulfill. Only after facing the threat of litigation did the state concede that many of the documents did not exist.
Reports were missing for roughly a third of the children who died in 2023 and 2024, according to data provided by the human services agency. The number of required records missing for prior years is unknown...
