Workers in Florida find '27 unmarked graves' at infamous, brutal youth prison

The school was closed in 2011 after over a century of operation

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As many as 27 unmarked graves may have been found at an infamous youth prison in Florida, where boys were brutally abused and locked in chains over a century of the facility’s operations.

The potential graves were found recently as workers prepared to clean up a fuel storage site near the former reform school known for its abuse, when ground-penetrating radar tests found more than two dozen “anomalies”.

Should those locations prove to be the location of human graves, that would raise the number of known human burials near the former Dozier School for Boys to 82. And, even that figure is thought to be much lower than what experts at the University of South Florida say is the likely number of dead boys buried in secret.

“Unmarked graves, by conscious design, are made to be hiding places,” Jack Levine, a children’s advocate in Florida, told The Miami Herald, which first reported the grave findings.

“What stays hidden almost forgives the crime,” he said.

The school was opened in 1897, and closed in 2011, and had been marketed as an alternative to the methods of reform then seen in schools for orphaned and delinquent youths.

But, the school eventually became known for its abuse, with visitors regularly reporting having seen students shackled in metal chains during visits.

The facility was ultimately closed after the US Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division found “systemic, egregious and dangerous practices exacerbated by a lack of accountability and controls.”