By John Braithwaite and Bina D'Costa

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. As a result, war and crime become complex phenomena. That does not mean we cannot understand how to prevent crime and war simultaneously. This book shows, for example, how a cascade analysis leads to an understanding of how refugee camps are nodes of both targeted attack and targeted recruitment into violence. Hence, humanitarian prevention also must target such nodes of risk. This book shows how nonviolence and non-domination can also be made to cascade, shunting cascades of violence into reverse. Complexity theory implies a conclusion that the pursuit of strategies for preventing crime and war is less important than understanding meta strategies. These are meta strategies for how to sequence and escalate many redundant prevention strategies. These themes were explored across seven South Asian societies during eight years of fieldwork.

Canberra: ANU Press, 2018. 706p.

By Amanda Gore ̵,Lindsey Kennedy, Nathan Southern, and Daan van Uhm.

The Asia Pacific region is the largest and fastest-growing market for gambling in the world. The proliferation of physical and online casinos in South East Asia presents criminal entities with a myriad of opportunities to engage in illicit activities. Whereas casinos generate revenues and employment prospects, their location within weak jurisdictions and special economic zones (SEZs) makes them incredibly permissive settings in which criminal individuals and organizations can operate freely and even run the casino operations. … There are four key reasons behind the convergence between international wildlife trafficking networks and casinos. First is their location in borderlands, which makes them favourable for criminal groups smuggling goods where there are concentrations of tourists. Second is their location in SEZs, which are characterized by weak oversight and lack of external monitoring. Third is the tourist-driven demand for wildlife products.2 Casinos in the region are primarily geared towards Mainland Chinese customers who are forbidden by law to gamble in China and actively seek opportunities to do so in countries within South East Asia, where they also seek wildlife products. Fourth are the personal connections between some prominent casino operators in the region and illegal timber and wildlife markets, both local and international.

Geneva, SWIT: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2022. 40p.

By The Soufan Center

In the last three years, Indonesia and the southern Philippines have seen something new: women carrying out suicide bombings – some with their husbands, some with their children, and some avenging slain husbands – targeting churchgoers, police officers, and soldiers.1 In Malaysia, during the May 2018 general election, a 51-year-old housewife planned to use a car filled with gas canisters and explosives to mow down voters at a polling station, raising the spectre of women killing not only with their families, but also perpetrating “self-directed” or “lone wolf” terrorist acts themselves.2 More recently, the suicide bombing of a church in Makassar, Indonesia, and a shooting at a police headquarters in Jakarta have once again highlighted the potential of female terrorist operatives. Like suicide bombing, it was once assumed that women’s involvement as perpetrators of terrorist violence was culturally and ideologically anathema to terrorist groups in the region.

Washington, DC: The Soufan Center, 2021. 38p.