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WAR AND CRIME are cascade phenomena. War cascades across space and time to more war; crime to more crime; crime cascades to war; and war to crime.

John Braithwaite and Bina D'Costa investigate the complexity that arises from these Cascades of Violence to show that increasing our understanding of how these cascades work can assist in the simultaneous prevention of both crime and war. For example, understanding the way refugee camps are nodes of both targeted attack and targeted recruitment into violence can stimulate more effective humanitarian prevention efforts to target such nodes of risk.

The book also shows how nonviolence and nondomination can also be made to cascade, shunting cascades of violence into reverse.

"Cascades of Violence is one of the few books that all at once constructs a sophisticated and innovative theoretical framework, relies on a wealth of primary material, and presents extraordinary comparative breadth and depth. It will be of great value to students and scholars of violence.” - Séverine Autesserre, Barnard College, Columbia University, author of Peaceland and The Trouble with the Congo

“Braithwaite and D’Costa’s metaphor of violence cascades is the starting point for a landmark analysis of complex reciprocal relationships between war and crime… This book’s remarkable formulation and analysis of ten provocative propositions yields hopeful lessons that illuminate new pathways to the reduction of war and crime.”  - John Hagan, Northwestern University and American Bar Foundation, author of Darfur and the Crime of Genocide (with Wenona Rymond-Richmond)