Moral ambiguity in white collar crime is fostered not only by
legislative bodies, but also by judges and prosecutors. In the case
of judges, one can observe an interesting inversion in attitudes,
apparently based on political ideology and class consciousness:
“conservative” judges tend to be more aggressive than their “lib-eral” counterparts in their attitudes toward the investigation,
prosecution, and punishment of street crime; in the case of white
collar offenses, just the opposite is true.52 To the extent that
people take their cues from judicial decisions, the result is likely
to be a certain amount of confusion.