Indeed, 75 percent of neglect cases are drug related (i.e., mom's an addict). But in New York City, Rudy Giuliani has slashed funding for preventive services such as drug-treatment programs for parents.

"For years the goal was family reunification, and parents were given a lot of opportunities to rehabilitate themselves," says Cynthia LaCaprucia, a staff attorney with the Manhattan Juvenile Rights Division of Legal Aid. "And there were problems with that, too. Some kids spent many, many years in foster care without a plan and the longer they stayed in foster care, the older they got and the harder it was for them to be adopted. Now the pendulum is swinging completely in the opposite way."

family court is at the center of a pitched battle between two warring camps,"have sometimes been reluctant to take enforcement action against people living in squalor and degradation."

still, wretched conditions are not always a sign of bad parenting. In July 1997, ACS investigators entered 76-year-old Agatha Sibley's apartment and found a distressing scene. The ceilings in the bathroom and the bedroom closet had partially fallen in, and water and plaster had rained down. Clothes once kept in the closet were scattered everywhere. Sibley's three grandchildren romped among the mess.

To Sibley's dismay, ACS declared her housing situation inadequate and the environment unsafe for children. The agency seized her three grandchildren and with the approval of a family court judge put them in foster care. Sibley was desperate. And, because she lived in public housing, confused. How could her landlord the city ignore