But from a systemic perspective, reducing crime by improving education is most efficient, because it happens automatically as a consequence of a system that accomplishes many other things as well. While the route is long and indirect, the destination is generally reached more surely and at lower cost with a system than a program. Programs within healthy systems are always constrained from explosive growth by competition from other programs. If an economy optimizes for one program , like weapons production, then the system as a whole is less productive. If a forest is changed to optimize output of a single species of plant or wood, then the forest as a whole is generally less diverse, resilient, and productive over the long term.
Programs are physical.
Because of this, systems can be sustainable. Programs cannot be. They are constrained by the laws of thermodynamics. Systems are the only source of resources. They are the only source of profit and wealth.