Penalty Enhancement for Hate Crimes: An Economic Analysis

Posted: 31 Oct 2003

See all articles by Dhammika Dharmapala

Dhammika Dharmapala

UC Berkeley School of Law; CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute); European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI)

Nuno Garoupa

George Mason University - Antonin Scalia Law School

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Abstract

This paper develops an economic analysis of penalty enhancements for bias-motivated (or "hate") crimes. Our model allows potential offenders' benefits from a crime to depend on the victim's group identity, and assumes that potential victims have the opportunity to undertake socially costly victimization avoidance activities. We derive the result that a pattern of crimes disproportionately targeting an identifiable group leads to greater social harm (even when the harm to an individual victim from a bias-motivated crime is identical to that from an equivalent non-hate crime). In addition, we consider a number of other issues related to hate crime laws.

Keywords: Law enforcement, hate crimes, penalty enhancement

JEL Classification: K14, K42

Suggested Citation

Dharmapala, Dhammika and Garoupa, Nuno, Penalty Enhancement for Hate Crimes: An Economic Analysis. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=453420

Dhammika Dharmapala (Contact Author)

UC Berkeley School of Law ( email )

302 JSP
2240 Piedmont Ave
Berkeley, CA 94720
United States

CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute) ( email )

Poschinger Str. 5
Munich, DE-81679
Germany

European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) ( email )

c/o the Royal Academies of Belgium
Rue Ducale 1 Hertogsstraat
1000 Brussels
Belgium

Nuno Garoupa

George Mason University - Antonin Scalia Law School ( email )

3301 Fairfax Drive
Arlington, VA 22201
United States

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