Political Ideology and Concerns about White-collar Crime: Exploring the "Switch Hypothesis".

Numerous studies show that political conservatives in the U.S. are more punitive and are more likely to express general concerns about crime and criminals than are political liberals. However, very little research has examined the relationship between political ideology and concerns about white-collar crime. Although conservatives are normally more punitive and more concerned with crime than liberals, elements of each political perspective suggest that this pattern may be reversed for white-collar crimes, with liberals more concerned and more punitive than conservatives. We test this hypothesis using data from an online survey administered to all students, both undergraduate and graduate, at a southern university. Our analyses include numerous controls, including demographic attributes, socioeconomic indicators, street crime victimization, white-collar crime victimization, and a composite measure of trust in professionals, a factor that may be particularly relevant to attitudes toward white-collar offenders. As hypothesized, political conservatives express less concern than political liberals about white-collar crime, a pattern that holds with and without the various controls in the model. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for research on political beliefs and perceptions of crime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]