The problem with urban gangs and rural tweeker and opiate drug runners is, criminal recruiters say to them "what other options do you got?" and God dammit it's a damn good point.
So I yearn not for robust social services, but access to cheap education, housing and healthcare for everyone. The state, needs to embrace the entrepreneurial spirit that made America great, and *COMPETE WITH* gangs in the war for human resources.
We need to manifest a situation where urban teens and rural kids in trailer parks have a retort when the bad guys try to recruit them with "what other options do you got?"
I feel like neoliberalism doesn't do that. Neoliberalism guarantees shitty housing and just enough food to feel less hungry. Neoliberalism guarantees shame. Kids turn to crime to chase that dollar and feel less shame.
Bernie's ideas (cheap college, cheap housing, cheap healthcare, funded by hedge fund manager who hide revenue overseas) wouldn't have solved every problem, but it would have definitely turned the tide in a better way than neoliberalism and it's pro-welfare state, or neoconservativism and it's for profit prison system offer.
Once the hurdles are removed, if you still wanna sell drugs or pimp bitches, people are gonna still lock you up. And make a tidy buck off of it.
But if we remove the hurdles, we remove the excuses. And show everyone's true colors.
At this time, there are too many hurdles. Dumb kids turn to crime, or social services, to bypass the hurdles.
Progressives, in my interpretation of the movement, seek to smash hurdles. And yea dude, welfare creates more hurdles down the road.