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Well, part of it is that attitudes about certain issues are what defines whether someone is conservative or liberal, including both attitudes toward criminal justice issues and diversity issues. For decades, and probably to some extent still, the statement, "liberals are soft on crime" has almost been a tautology (though, of course, liberals would not frame their attitudes in that way). If you opposed capital punishment or supported the rights of criminal defendants, historically you were, per se, a liberal (though of course there were a smattering of libertarians), which is why in 1984 future AG Meese was referring to the ACLU as "a criminals' lobby."
I would expect that, in fact, conservative women are more fearful of sexual assault than are liberal women, esp controlling for obvious confounders such as age, marital status, location, etc.
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