This article 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...

We argue that legislation can generate compliance expressively, independently of deterrence. The Condorcet jury theorem implies that, in certain circumstances, the legislative process aggregates the private information of legislators to reach a decision superior to that of any individual...