A new report accuses the city's child welfare agency of putting children in harm's way when it is supposed to be protecting them. NY1's Courtney Gross has the details of how the failures of the Administration for Children's Services may have had some fatal consequences.

Tuesday, the city's Department of Investigation (DOI) released a scathing report examining the abuse of three children, whose names were not released to protect their identities.

Two of them died, and one was severely abused. All of them were under the supervision of the Administration for Children's Services (ACS).

"ACS failed to do proper child abuse investigations, and so missed things that could have allowed them to protect children sooner," DOI Commissioner Mark Peters said.

The report found the agency missed high-risk indicators like "chronic neglect, repeated abuse and neglect, and food deprivation."

It says lapses by ACS and its staff "may have contributed to the harms the children in these families suffered.”

In one case, ACS was aware that one mother had a very long history of abuse and neglect of her children, including "excessive corporal punishment, inadequate guardianship, lack of medical care, and drug abuse."

Nonetheless, her children were returned to her. In just one year, she severely beat and killed one of them.

"Obviously, there is no way to know for certain whether any one action would have prevented these children's deaths," Peters said. "But there is absolutely no doubt in all three instances that ACS missed multiple opportunities to get these children out of harm's way."

"Yeah, we are making a series of changes," Mayor Bill de Blasio said. "I think the report is important because it is pointing out things we have to do better."

The city welfare agency argued since these tragedies occurred in 2014 it has invested $100 million to strengthen the child welfare system.

"My view is our job is to literally save every child," de Blasio said.

ACS is not adopting all of the recommendations of the report. In fact, the agency is actually disputing some of its findings. Nonetheless, the commissioner says his investigation is not over.