This question jumps past the more fundamental question of whether policymakers, and the government in general, should prevent people from making their own choices.
Education is a very different story which ends with letting people make their own decisions after (hopefully) having more information about realistic outcomes.
I don't personally want a government preventing me from making my own choices. That line is blurry for sure, like if my decision directly negatively impacts someone else for example. But if packing up and riding the rails or sleeping in parks primarily impacts only me, the government shouldn't be able to stop me because they "know" its the wrong choice.
The question was simply how to avoid people falling through the cracks. That was it and while not worded all that well, it was a noble question.
It didn’t need that level of sermon. Every reasonably educated person got your point after the first sentence.
Best way to keep people from falling through the cracks to put them all in prison
> This question jumps past the more fundamental question of whether policymakers, and the government in general, should prevent people from making their own choices.
When your choices include terrorizing businesses and being a public nuisance to everyone else, then yes, government should prevent people from making those choices.
We already have laws for theft and similar crimes. You don't need a government creating more rules preventing entire categories of choices from being made, especially if they already can't enforce the laws on the books.
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I'm not advocating for the US legal/criminal system at all actually. The prior comment was pointing to crimes already being committed by people who make or made certain choices. My only point was that further regulation may not be a great solution when the activities being done are already illegal and going unenforced.
Personally I'd rather gut the legal system and drastically raise the bar by which people are locked up as punishment, but that's beside the point.
I don't see how you are saying anything different.
You seem to agree that punishment and violence is the primary tool of American government, and then you want to use it to control more choices. Call me cynical, but I expect that's how it will be approached. Theft and vagrancy is already a crime. Maybe it was the punk music that led to those so let's criminalize that as well.