While I acknowledge this (especially your last observation regarding the shameful state of U.S. prisons), and laugh at the ignorance of the claim that E.E. street gangs not having had easy access to firearms (they very much had, especially post-Yugoslav Wars), I still think that less policing has the potential to improve things.

Harsh policing would not change culture, even if it was done fairly, in the interest of community welfare. But U.S. policing is far from fair: U.S. police instill fear, rather than respect in the public, even in many moderately well-off areas that are free of street gangs. Legal and regulated prostitution, a definitive end to the drug war, would allow us to significantly defund the police, and pour those into efforts that could actually help. Moreover, this would decimate the revenue streams of many street gangs, which immediately reduces their "coolness factor".

There is some concern that most of the money freed up by this could end up poured into efforts that have a track record of not working. Alas, I think this is fairly likely, but it's no big loss: currently, all of that same money is being poured into different efforts that still definitely do not work. And if we get lucky, a fraction of the money may actually go to efforts that actually have a positive impact on cultural problems.

At least in Russia law enforcement and organized crime are fully integrated. People join police instead of gangs if the want to get into extortion and racket. When clans clash, you can see rooms full of money in a colonel’s house that would put a drug lord to shame. And prison culture might be getting less popular, but it still has a strong presence.

Ex soviet block street gangs dont have easy access to firearms. Yes real organized crime have all the cool toys but general street hustling punks not as much. Not so in the us

Street gangs are a problem in former Soviet states.

Here's some reading on them in Russia: https://www.londonmet.ac.uk/news/articles/svetlana-stephenso...

> The biggest reason why people join gangs is because they're there. It's a cultural problem above all else.

I'm going to challenge you to find a citation to back up this belief before you continue going through life believing it, because it's a dangerous one, rooted in ignorance, that causes racism.

> that causes racism. Elaborate?

to say that the reason people join gangs is cultural implies that it's a "bad culture" problem. the reality of why people join gangs is more complicated and includes overpolicing, economic deprivation, legacies of slavery and racism, and other factors. but if we say "it's just their culture" then we commit a fallacy that leads us to say "black people are doing this to themselves because of their bad qualities X,Y,Z", and we may also end up saying "black people are poor and disenfranchised for the same bad culture problems as lead them to form gangs". this is a classic fallacy, throughout human history, in which oppressed groups of people have their character impugned based on ignorant readings of the ways that they cope with and adapt to their situation, and thus are blamed for their own oppression