Each year, thousands of people are killed as a result of an automobile collision. In 2016 alone, collisions killed approximately 37,461 people; this is nearly double the number of murders reported by the UCR for the same year. Additionally, motor vehicle related harms result in billions of dollars of expenses each year. In order to maintain roadway safety, many police departments increase traffic enforcement to deter drivers from engaging in negative driving behaviors. Using a deterrent framework, I study the effects of one traffic unit’s outcome on traffic collisions and motor vehicle safety crimes in the City of Paducah, Kentucky. Equipped with four years of longitudinal data, collisions and motor vehicle safety crimes are compared during intervention and non-intervention periods. Independent Sample T-Tests are used to determine the association between increased traffic enforcement and the outcome variables. Next, a One way ANOVA, and subsequent Post Hoc tests are used to determine the differences between 3 separate time periods. The results suggest that as traffic enforcement increased during the intervention period, collisions and DUI offenses decreased when compared to the pre-intervention phase; while the number of collisions increased after the intervention, DUI offenses continued to decrease. Offenses for speeding 15 mph above the speed limit and disregarding a traffic control device increased during the intervention period, when compared to pre-intervention levels and decreased after the intervention period, suggesting a positive relationship with traffic enforcement. These results are discussed in relation to deterrence theory. Finally, limitations and avenues for future research are addressed.

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Using data collected at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility, this research aimed to examine factors that affect the likelihood of re-offending by testing two models: a specific deterrence model and a proposed comparable capital model. Specifically, this research aimed to examine how economic, cultural, and social capital in the community, as well as in prison, affect self-reported likelihood of re-offending upon release, and to examine if these indicators are better suited for explaining offending as compared to those included in a deterrence model. By examining these effects, it was discovered that traditional deterrence and capital indicators alone do not provide a sufficient explanation of likelihood of re-offending. The proposed Capital and Punishment Model of Re-offending may provide a better way of conceptualizing offenders’ likelihood of re-offending upon release because it considers the effects of community and prison capital, while paying special attention to the effects of prior punishment.

Employees' noncompliance with information security policy and rules is a serious impediment to the effectiveness of security programs in organizations. The extant information security studies have used General Deterrence Theory (GDT) to investigate noncompliant information security behavior, yet most of the findings have not been effective in practice due to a lack of strong theoretical underpinning. Neglecting criminal propensity of the potential perpetrator has been identified to be one of the theoretical weaknesses of GDT-based studies. Any attempt to explain noncompliant information security behavior in organizational context, demands a well grounded framework to explain why employees transgress information security policies and rules. The purpose of this study was to empirically investigate the link between self-control (criminal propensity), deterrence perceptions, and noncompliant information security behavior. Criminal propensity was operationalized using the three perspectives of self-control: personality trait, social bond, and self-generated inhibitions. This study then examined the influence of the three self-control variables on deterrence perceptions (certainty, severity, and celerity). Further, the study investigated the impact of deterrence perceptions on noncompliant information security behavior. Data collected from 421 employees in a Southern USA-based company was used to test the relationships between research model constructs using SPSS's Amos structural equation modeling software package. Results indicated that employees' perceptions on all three dimensions of deterrents were positively impacted by self-control based on self-generated inhibitions. The results also showed that only employees' perceptions on certainty of apprehension and celerity of punishment were positively impacted by social bond self-control. No significant relationships were established between deterrence perceptions and personality trait self-control. Further, employees' perceptions on certainty of apprehension and celerity of punishment were negatively associated with noncompliant information security behavior. The results also indicated that severity of punishment was not a significant predictor of noncompliant information security behavior. The uniqueness of this study provided evidence on the importance of incorporating criminal propensity in GDT-based studies. The current study also highlighted the importance of celerity of punishment dimension, which is highly neglected by GDT-based information security studies.

Since the end of the Cold War, the emphasis on nuclear deterrence has declined. The rise of China has generated a voluminous literature on power transition theory and whether China and the United States can avoid the “Thucydides Trap.” A lacuna in this literature is the role that nuclear deterrence plays in the strategic dynamic between the United States, Japan, and China. This dissertation fills this lacuna by analyzing the role that nuclear deterrence plays in the military strategies of Japan, China, and the United States. How do China and Japan internalize and understand nuclear deterrence theory in ways that depart from the Cold War paradigm? What effect do dissimilar conceptions of nuclear deterrence theory have on the nuclear and conventional force structure and strategies of each country? To understand the reasons for variation in nuclear strategy in East Asia, I argue that contra systemic theories Japan legitimizes its military capabilities in an extended nuclear deterrence framework based on ideationally driven constitutional theory. Departing from Japan’s strategic mindset during the Cold War, China now occupies the place of the “Other” in Japanese national identity, thus in part explaining its shift to a more pro-active military posture. This is to say that it is not China’s rise that preoccupies Japan, but China’s rise that influences Japanese strategic behavior. Lastly, I argue that China’s assertive foreign policy behavior and nuclear strategy are driven not by structural incentives dictated by the international system, but by ideational and historical imperatives under the rubric of the “China Dream (zhongguo meng)” and “National Rejuvenation (minzu fuxing).” Using analyses of Japanese and Chinese language sources, e.g., official government and defense documents, newspapers, books, and journal articles, this dissertation makes two major contributions. First, departing from the dominant and acultural structural realist and game theoretic approaches to nuclear deterrence theory, it offers an alternative “thin constructivist approach” that considers distinct ideational determinants of each country’s approach to nuclear deterrence theory and their effect on nuclear strategy. Second, it uncovers dissimilar approaches to nuclear escalation that depart from Cold War-derived models.

The prominence of the South China Sea comes from its wealth of energy resources, fisheries, and maritime trade that traverses through its waters. These assets entice many southeast Asian countries to stake their claims over the features of the sea. In recent years, China’s rising power has allowed the country to increasingly assert its authority in the territory without much of an opposing force. Of the few actors that are capable of policing China’s actions, the United States is the most promising, yet has failed to meet international expectations. Through two case studies and theoretical analysis, this thesis examines the failures of American deterrence policy through a two-part approach. First, it investigates the incident of the 2012 Scarborough Shoal standoff between the Philippines and China, analyzing the consequences of American policy failure. It then examines Chinese island reclamation efforts, and how the failures from the first case study can explain the new Chinese strategy and rationale behind Chinese activities. Lastly, the paper explores the deterrence theory and its applications to gray zone conflicts, pointing out components of successful deterrence in these types of engagements and why American deterrence policy was ineffective.

Target Corporation experienced an information security breach resulting in compromising customers' financial information. Management is responsible for implementing adequate information security policies that protect corporate data and minimize financial losses. The purpose of this experimental study was to examine the effect of a fear appeal communication on an individual's information security policy behavioral intention. The sample population involved information technology professionals randomly selected from the SurveyMonkey audience. A research model, developed using constructs from deterrence theory and protection motivation theory, became the structural model used for partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) analysis of the survey response data, which indicated that self-efficacy was statistically significant. The remaining model variables, perceived threat vulnerability, perceived threat severity, response efficacy, informal sanction certainty, informal sanction severity, formal sanction certainty, and formal sanction severity, were not statistically significant. A statistically significant self-efficacy result could indicate confidence among the population to comply with information security policies. The nonsignificant results could indicate the fear appeal treatment did not motivate a change in behavior or information security policy awareness bias was introduced by selecting information technology professionals. Social change in information security could be achieved by developing an effective information security policy compliance fear appeal communication, which could change information security compliance behavior and contribute to securing the nation's critical cyber infrastructure and protecting data.

Unlicensed driving remains a serious problem for road safety, despite ongoing improvements in traffic law enforcement practices and technology. While it does not play a direct causative role in road crashes, unlicensed driving undermines the integrity of the driver licensing system and is associated with a range of high-risk behaviours. This thesis documents three studies that were undertaken to explore the scope and nature of unlicensed driving, in order to develop more effective countermeasures to the behaviour.----- Study One utilised official road crash data from the Australian state of Queensland to compare the crash involvement patterns of unlicensed drivers with those of licensed drivers. The results confirmed that unlicensed driving is a relatively small, but significant road safety problem. Unlicensed drivers represent over 6% of the drivers involved in fatal crashes and 5% of those in serious injury crashes. Based on a quasi-induced exposure method, unlicensed drivers were found to be almost three times as likely to be involved in a crash than licensed drivers. In the event of a crash, those involving unlicensed drivers were twice as likely to result in a fatality or serious injury. Consistent with these results, the serious crashes involving unlicensed drivers were more likely to feature risky driving behaviours, such as drink driving, speeding and motorcycle use, than those involving licensed drivers.----- Study Two involved a cross-sectional survey of 309 unlicensed driving offenders who were recruited at the Brisbane Central Magistrates Court. The survey involved a face-to-face interview that took approximately 25 minutes to complete and achieved a response rate of 62.4%. A wide range of offenders participated in the study, including: disqualified and suspended drivers; expired licence holders; drivers without a current or appropriate licence; and those who had never been licensed. The results reinforced concerns about the on-road behaviour of unlicensed drivers. Almost one quarter of all the offenders reported driving unlicensed when they thought they might have been over the alcohol limit. Similarly, 25% reported exceeding the speed limit by 10 km/h or more on most or all occasions, while 15% admitted that they didn't always wear their seat belt. In addition, the results indicated that unlicensed drivers should not be viewed as a homogeneous group. Significant differences were found between the offender types in terms of their socio-demographic characteristics (age, education level, prior criminal convictions); driving history (prior convictions for unlicensed driving and other traffic offences); whether they were aware of being unlicensed; the degree to which they limited their driving while unlicensed; and their drink driving behaviour. In particular, a more deviant sub-group of offenders was identified, that included the disqualified, not currently licensed and never licensed drivers, who reported higher levels of prior criminal offending, alcohol misuse and self-reported drink driving. The results of Study Two also highlight the shortcomings of existing police enforcement practices. Almost one-third of the sample reported that they continued to drive unlicensed after being detected by the police (up until the time of the court hearing), while many offenders reported experiences of punishment avoidance. For example, over one third of the participants reported being pulled over by the police while driving unlicensed and not having their licence checked.----- Study Three involved the further analysis of the cross-sectional survey data to explore the factors contributing to unlicensed driving. It examined the influence of various personal, social and environmental factors on three aspects of the offenders' behaviour: the frequency of their driving while unlicensed; whether they continued to drive unlicensed after being detected; and their intentions to drive unlicensed in the future. This study was also designed to assess the capacity of a number of different theoretical perspectives to explain unlicensed driving behaviour, including deterrence theory and Akers' (1977) social learning theory. At an applied level, the results of Study Three indicated that personal and social factors exert the strongest influence over unlicensed driving behaviour. The main personal influences on unlicensed driving were: the need to drive for work purposes; exposure to punishment avoidance; personal attitudes to unlicensed driving; and anticipated punishments for the behaviour. The main social influences reflected the social learning construct of differential association, namely being exposed to significant others who both engage in unlicensed driving (behavioural dimension) and hold positive attitudes to the behaviour (normative dimension). At a theoretical level, the results of Study Three have two important implications for traffic psychology and criminology. Firstly, they provided partial support for Stafford and Warr's (1993) reconceptualisation of deterrence theory by demonstrating that the inclusion of punishment avoidance can improve the overall predictive utility of the perspective. Secondly, they suggested that social learning theory represents a more comprehensive framework for predicting illegal driving behaviours, such as unlicensed driving. This is consistent with Akers' (1977; 1990) assertion that formal deterrence processes can be subsumed within social learning theory.----- Together, the results of the three studies have important implications for road safety. Most importantly, they question the common assumption that unlicensed drivers drive in a more cautious manner to avoid detection. While the findings indicate that many offenders reduce their overall driving exposure in order to avoid detection, this does not appear to result in safer driving. While it remains possible that unlicensed drivers tend to act more cautiously than they would otherwise, it appears that their driving behaviour is primarily designed to reduce their chances of detection. In terms of countermeasures, the research indicates that a multi-strategy approach is required to address the problem of unlicensed driving. Unlicensed drivers do not represent a homogeneous group who are likely to be influenced by the threat of punishment alone. Rather, innovative strategies are required to address the wide range of factors that appear to encourage or facilitate the behaviour. Foremost among these are punishment avoidance and the need to drive for work purposes.

The purpose of this research is to identify the forces that impact the intention of employees to misuse the Internet at the workplace, called cyberloafing. Although cyberloafing literature has suggested several antecedents that predict cyberloafing such as job attitudes, organizational characteristics, work stressors, locus of control (Blanchard & Henle, 2008; Henle & Blanchard, 2008; Liberman, Seidman, McKenna, & Buffardi, 2011), this research adopted attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, and organizational citizenship behavior to predict the intention to cyberloaf. Additionally, this research adopted organizational justice and the mechanisms of general deterrence theory as moderating variables to better understand the relationship between attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, organizational citizenship behavior, and the intention to cyberloaf. We believe it is essential to investigate the antecedents of cyberloafing to help predict its existence and occurrence. The existing research, which examined employees' abuse of the Internet, remains greatly atheoretical; thus, it supplies limited insights to researchers as to why cyberloafing continues to take place (Lim, 2002). It is important to recognize what motivates employees to engage in cyberloafing for organizations to implement specific polices and intervention programs to limit or deter its occurrence. This is necessary, as employees' abuse of the Internet can negatively affect an organization through decreased profitability, reduced productivity levels, and exposure to a diverse range of legal liabilities (Liberman et al., 2011). The results of the study showed that an employee's attitude and subjective norm can significantly predict his or her intention to engage in cyberloafing. Both of the dimensions of general deterrence theory (punishment severity and certainty) significantly moderated the relationship between attitude, subjective norm, and the intention to cyberloaf. Additionally, punishment severity significantly moderated the relationship between perceived behavioral control and the intention to cyberloaf. From this study, we concluded that cyberloafing is a social phenomenon that needs to be studied further to fully comprehend the organizational contexts, motivational factors, and consequences. Our study should be analyzed as a positive step toward learning the key components that can influence employees' intentions to abuse the Internet in the workplace.

Japan has been seen as a safe country in the world. Previous studies that show societal and cultural characteristics have contributed to the comparative low crime rates. Also, the roles of criminal justice system are critical. Today, Japanese society favors a more punitive approach towards offenders. The present study examined which variables of economic factors, socio-structural factors, and deterrence factors affected Japanese crime rates (i.e., homicide, robbery, and larceny), testing for Institutional anomie theory (IAT) and deterrence theory. I conducted visual examination of co-variation with Z-scores and an ARIMA (autoregressive integrated moving average), with Japanese governmental data from 1955 to 2012. The results indicated homicide rates were explained by neither IAT nor deterrence variables. Robbery rates were significantly related with unemployment rates and divorce rates, supporting IAT. Larceny rates were strongly associated with clearance rates, giving support to deterrence theory. Based on the results, practical implications and limitations were discussed.