That is not a difference of politics but of what you are looking at. If the subject is public health policy you look at statistics and the big picture. If you look at one particular patient you don't. Same here: If the subject is the fate of one person and one person only (meaning that person isn't a "Fake" stand-in example and the subject really is the big picture) then you can and should talk about that person's behavior. If the subject is the big picture that's useless because you can't change people and you should make policies that work and don't demand a huge genetic change. Same in crime: Individuals are and should be held accountable, but public policy should not and does not rely on people to change but sets the framework.

So, no contradiction necessary. The exact same person can have both views - depending on what the subject is. However, lots of discussions and comments focus on individuals (even if no concrete one is chosen) when the subject is the big picture.

I think so-called conservatives and progressives would find that they are not actually all that far apart at all if they really looked at individual cases. It must be true individual cases - people tend to extrapolate and still think about the population (coming up with things like "slippery slope" arguments, or giving small criminals huge sentences to "send a signal").