Universal Basic Income and decriminalization of drugs and single payer universal healthcare would go a long way towards making the whole criminality arms race dry up and disappear. Desperation, as a constant social background hum, would largely stop.

Poverty, social misery and drug addiction no doubt leads to lots of petty crime but hostage takings and illegal immigration is not going to get solved with UBI.

Decriminalisation of drugs (Portugal) would not negate the need of going after importers and large scale dealers.

Full drug legalization with standardized safe supply would make importing it as negligible a business as moonshine running.

To solve illegal immigration, UBI has to be extended globally - and then the border can simply be taken down.

Lofty ambitions, won't ever happen.

> put to constructive and rewarding work

i like this idea, but i can not quite see how the US constitution's system of individual rights would allow the government to "put" anyone to work. the most it could do is offer someone a job.

and that someone would be free to reject such an offer because it wasn't profitable enough, or because criminal friends and acquaintances might prove to be very threatening to someone if someone were to accept such a job.

I should clarify, I don't mean putting them to work. Like a punitive or job placement type of thing. These are smart people motivated by risk and reward. And they can plan and think and follow through. They just need easy pathways to jobs and lifestyles that can let them do that.

Societal change is at a different scale and pace as other changes.

Not saying the idea isn't correct - just that theres a lot left to figure out in the details.

People cant get to gym or eat healthy even if it has massive differences to their life style.

That's naive, there will always be people looking to subvert the system because they want to see the world burn.