"Social
control activities may unintentionally generate functional alternatives. The relationship between controllers and
controlled may often be characterized as a movable equilibrium. As in sports or any competitive endeavor,
new strategies, techniques and resources may give one side a temporary
advantage, but the other side tends to find ways to neutralize, avoid or
counter them. The action may become
more sophisticated, practitioners more skilled, and the nature of the game may
be altered - but the game does not stop.
A saying among Hong Kong drug dealers in response to periodic clampdowns
captures this nicely: 'Shooting the
singer is no way to stop the opera.'" (Marx 1993:13) Wolfgang Herbert The Yakuza and the Law Introduction In this paper I want to outline the interplay between
the law, as represented by the police, and Japan’s underworld gangsters known
as yakuza[1]. I
will concentrate on the Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan's biggest yakuza syndicate. My basic thesis is that the state and
organized crime have developed an interaction that can be described as a
supergame. The players in this game are
the public, politicians, the law, the police, the mass media, business leaders,
and the yakuza.
The latter have to be seen as an enterprise purveying legal, semi-legal,
and illegal goods and services. Changes
in attitudes or formal rules (laws) lead to a shifting in the balance of social
power between the actors. But it will not
lead to the ‘eradication’ of the yakuza, an outcome
the police repeatedly predict with a somewhat heroic optimism (in almost every
White Paper, the respective term is kaimetsu, the
destruction of the yakuza, most recently Keisatsuchô 1997:183). Yakuza may renounce
certain activities, but at the same time they occupy new economic niches (for
above outlined perspective I owe much to Pascha 1993, who analyzes yakuza
with an operational economic approach).
After some time a new informal social contract will come into
existence. If it is blatantly broken or
one of the players feels particularly endangered or that they are losing the
game, legal or other steps are taken. I
want to demonstrate this in reference to the new legislation against yakuza
which came into effect on March 1, 1992.
However, this was not the first time that law enforcement agencies had
tried to curb the activities of the yakuza, so I shall also give a short and
concise outline of post-World War II developments, again focusing on the
interplay between police action and yakuza re-action. In the
immediate post-war period the existence of a huge black market and the lack of
state control was an ideal breeding ground for organized crime and
racketeering. It was then that the
‘traditional’ yakuza groups of gamblers (bakuto)
and peddlers (tekiya or yashi)
moved into business areas previously foreign to them, e.g. prostitution,
extortion or drug dealing (mainly amphetamines). They competed with aggressive
groups of young delinquents ‘without tradition’, called gurentai.
The lines between these groups began to blur, alignments and mergers occurred,
and all of them were forced to diversify their businesses - a process which
continues up to the present. They also fought against gangs of so-called sangokujin
(Koreans, Chinese, and Taiwanese resident in Japan as a legacy of the colonial
period, the term is derogatory) for control of the black market. The yakuza finally broke
up these or other gangs or absorbed them.
The economic resurgence during and after the Korean war led to a
construction boom in Japan. Yakuza profited
widely from their growing involvement in the construction business. In 1959 the Yomiuri Shinbun launched an
anti-yakuza-campaign (mentioned in Raz 1996: 251) and in 1960 the Chûgoku
Shinbun started to address the yakuza problem and
published some courageous articles (Kitazawa 1988:57). Researching the yakuza Here I have to
make a brief comment about journalism covering the yakuza. The serious national daily newspapers are
heavily dependent on police (and public prosecutor) sources, which they usually
reproduce without critical reflection (this is often condemned, e.g. by
Yamaguchi 1990:102 or Katsura 1990: 39f.).
The dailies habitually support the police in their effort to disseminate
a negative picture of the yakuza and to create a repressive mood. However,
the yakuza have their spokesmen too: gokudô-journalists[2]. These reporters almost exclusively write
about yakuza, mostly in so-called jitsuwashi,
magazines carrying stories about sex, crime and showbiz-gossip, which I have
tried to characterize in Herbert 1992:85ff., see also Adachi 1987 and Raz 1996:
60ff.). These journalists tend to
present a ‘positive’ image of the yakuza, by quoting
them extensively in their own argot and giving them the opportunity to make
propaganda for their cause, ideology, and lifestyle. Gokudô-journalists are well informed but are
likely to report only the official yakuza-version. Some of them I use as sources myself, such
as Yamada, Ino and Mizoguchi, but they have to be read carefully for possible
bias. Mizoguchi became more and more
critical of the yakuza in the 1980s. He paid for that when he was violently
attacked and stabbed by yakuza in June 1990 (on this incident, the publication
of a critical book on the Yamaguchi-gumi, and value changes in the yakuza
world, see Herbert 1996b). The serious
press has an ambivalent role: it does
not simply publish items based on police-sources, but sometimes acts as a moral
entrepreneur, putting pressure on the police to act tough on crime. The reader
will find some scattered remarks pertaining to my sources in this paper. Let me
quickly indicate some of the main points. Yakuza are by no
means mysterious or unfathomable. The police presents long accounts of their
activities and astonishingly precise statistics, surveys, and data in the
annual police ‘White Paper’, the Keisatsu Hakusho.
Lengthy studies of yakuza can regularly be found in the police
research journal Keisatsugaku Ronshû. Journalists
specializing in yakuza affairs report frequently on new
developments, internal power shifts and yakuza rituals. The most
important anthropological work remains that of Iwai (1963), though there is
also an outstanding more recent account in Japanese by Raz (1996). A
well-researched journalistic account is available in English by Kaplan and
Dubro (1986). It covers the history of the underworld as well as recent changes
up to the middle of the 1980s. The most recent comprehensive study is the
dissertation by Peter Hill (2000).[3]
Other books I have used are cited and discussed below. I also draw on
an extended period of fieldwork in the late 1980s and the beginning of the
1990s. I had several yakuza contacts in Kamagasaki, the
day laborer area of Osaka. The outstanding among them was a wakagashira hosa
(‘assistant young leader’, cf. Kaplan and Dubro 1986:132) from a Yamaguchi-gumi
affiliated syndicate. He took a fancy to me and took me along on his ‘evening
tours’. I was able to observe various transactions first hand, such as cashing
in protection money or troubleshooting. In return he showed me around as his
‘international asset’. This seemingly earned him further prestige and was his
reward for disclosing stories and insider information to me. Yakuza
tend to instrumentalize non-yakuza and also
stage an impressive show for them. However, they loosen up over a longer period
of contact, notably after a drink or two. In the late 1990s I happened to make
some new acquaintances among younger low-ranking yakuza in
Shikoku. They readily talked about recent hardships regarding the new law and
corroborated the developments described in this paper. In particular the
existence of front companies and the trend not to join the yakuza
officially seem to be well established and strengthening. Usually I chose to
conduct ‘soft interviews’ without interference from technology (tape recorders
and the like) as a method of information gathering. Talks were always
transcribed immediately after they were held. Let me also
comment briefly on the terminology. Since the 1960s, the police – and
consequently the press as well – have called the yakuza
‘bôryokudan’, which literally means ‘violent
group’. As Bourdieu repeatedly notes, the categorization and labeling of a
social phenomenon is a symbolic battle with consequences for the perception of
what is conceived as social ‘reality’. The language of persons with authority
(e. g. politicians) itself exerts power. They can even call things into
existence by naming them in a particular manner (Bourdieu 1984:65-66). The
labeling of the yakuza as a ‘violent group’ is as intentional
as it is partly (un)just. It is unjust because it picks out one –
admittedly important – element of the yakuza
lifestyle, namely violence, and transforms it into a generic term. It therefore
becomes a pseudo-explanatory, reductionist general label which functions like a
stigma and overshadows the whole of the yakuza existence
(Raz 1996:241-2). It is intentional in the sense that it is designed to deprive
the yakuza of their romantic Robin Hood image. This is
associated with the term ‘yakuza’ itself,
which carries positive connotations of popular heroes and protectors of the
weak. This heroic image can be found in popular culture from Kabuki, movies,
and books to jitsuwashi journalism (Raz 1996:39-81). Controlling the yakuza In 1956 the police
declared their intention to conduct more extensive investigations into the yakuza in
order to obtain the intelligence necessary for systematic control. From 1958
onwards new departments for the investigation of yakuza
were set up, beginning with one of the Metropolitan Police Headquarters (Keishichô)
in Tokyo. Public concern about the yakuza was
heightened and the annual number arrested rose from roughly 9,000 in the 1940s
and '50s to over 58,000. Despite these
efforts the number of yakuza gangs (5,200) and their
members (around 184,000) reached an all-time high in 1963 (Worm 1988:73). In 1964 the
police drew up a new program for the control of yakuza (bôryokudan
torishimari yôkô). They announced what they called
"Strategy 65", a set of guidelines for countermeasures against the yakuza.
Its two main pillars were: chôjô sakusen,
i.e. the apprehension of bosses and executives (kanbu)
and shikingen no kaimetsu, meaning destruction of the yakuza’s sources of income (Asakura 1987:233). Since
then the three basic declared aims of the police have been arrest of gang
members, control of funds and seizure of weapons (e.g. Keisatsuchô
1978:38ff.). This is repeated in police
reports like a ritual incantation. The
slogans pertaining to this threefold strategy are periodically renewed. Yet
another refers to the police clamp down on hito, kane, mono = people, money and goods (Keisatsuchô
1989:71), more or less the same as the ‘Strategy 65’ guidelines. In the 1990s a
similar list was condensed into: "3 L-katto"- katto
standing for the English "cut" and L for "lifeline". This
meant that the police were intent on cutting down on yakuza
staff (= arrests), goods (= i. e. weapons) and income (Yamada et al.
1994:260). Although since the late
1980s the police have undeniably taken a tougher line on the yakuza,
it can still be argued that the police are not interested in the total
‘crushing’ of organized crime but rather in keeping it under control. Earlier police
efforts to clamp down have shown marked side-effects (for the following I rely
on the account by Ino 1992). Altogether
there were three "summit strategies" (chôjô sakusen)
launched in order to get hold of the top leaders of yakuza gangs. The first was initiated in 1965-67 and
resulted in mass arrests and the disbanding of big syndicates. However it was only the form of coalition
between gangs that was given up. The
coalition member organizations themselves were not dismantled. Big horizontally connected syndicates such
as the Kantô-kai, Honda-kai, Tôsei-kai, Sumiyoshi-kai, Matsuba-kai
and others were officially declared dissolved.
But they were soon reorganized, especially once their leaders had been
released from prison. The main effect
of the second chôjô sakusen , in 1969,
was that small gangs which relied exclusively on traditional income sources -
and which were therefore obsolete anyway - were broken up. The big surviving
syndicates diversified their portfolios and consolidated their business. A third concerted action to arrest gang
members and their bosses in 1975,
mostly on charges of illegal weapon possession, resulted in the grouping
of yakuza gangs into conglomerates (keiretsuka),
an oligopolization of the underworld, and nationwide expansion by the three
biggest syndicates. One of the main side-effects
was the introduction of a franchise system. The bosses are paid regular fees
from all affiliated gangs and are therefore practically insulated from
day-to-day activities - especially from "dirty" work. This insulation of the top executives is a
defensive measure against police attempts to arrest the bosses (this money flow
from bottom to top is called jônôkin, I discuss it
later in the chapter.) The functions of organized crime In this rough
outline one can already see that yakuza react quickly
to moves by the police. They do not
just vanish because of intensified persecution and/or prosecution. Organized crime exists due to structural
preconditions in (almost) any given society.
At a micro-sociological level Raz suggests that yakuza represent a
variation on the core traditional culture and values of the Japanese (Raz
1996:42). In fact yakuza
send out a set of signals both exclusive (‘we are outlaws’ etc.) and inclusive
(‘we have the real Japanese spirit’ etc).
He vividly describes the obsession of yakuza
with posing and performing, their way of ‘stigma-management’ (Raz 1992; cf. Goffman 1963). Raz subscribes to a Durkheimian view of
criminality as being functional for society: it fosters cohesion and (moral)
solidarity among its members by defining (rather arbitrarily) the boundaries
between ‘normal’ and ‘deviant’ behavior (Raz 1996:225f.). A functionalist macro-sociological viewpoint
also provides a possible interpretation of why the yakuza
are an almost accepted institution in Japanese society, despite official
condemnation. They are deeply embedded
in Japanese society, in which they function in several ways: economic, social,
legal, and political. The economic
reason for the continued existence of the yakuza is
obvious: as a business they satisfy a
demand among ‘ordinary’ people for illegal goods (e.g. drugs) and services
(e.g. prostitution, loan sharking, debt collection). Socially, the yakuza
offer an alternative career and avenues to success for members of Japanese
society, who suffer from disadvantage and discrimination. Among those with highly restricted
opportunities are school drop-outs.
According to one police survey (Keisatsuchô 1989:38), 80% of
novice yakuza did not complete junior high or high school - whereas roughly 98% of the overall
population graduates from high school.
Juvenile delinquents are another source of yakuza
recruits: more than 60% of recruits
have a ‘history of delinquent behavior’, 46.2% of those have been involved in
severe criminal acts like murder, assault, mayhem or intimidation (Hoshino
1980:43). Residents of Korean heritage
and hisabetsu burakumin[4]
are also more likely than most to join the yakuza. Although no reliable data exist, it is well
known that the proportion of members of these two discriminated minorities are
greatly over-represented in yakuza syndicates, especially in Western
Japan. According to an unofficial
police estimate, around 10% of Yamaguchi-gumi members are of Korean origin,
while up to 70% of them have a burakumin background (Kaplan and Dubro 1986:145). The legal role
of the yakuza has developed out of loopholes in the Japanese
judicial system. Not only is the number
of lawyers hopelessly small, but also court proceedings take an enormous length
of time until a judgment is handed down.
In the case of civil conflicts Yakuza are hired rather than lawyers in
order to solve them. The police also
refuse to deal with civil disputes, and so yakuza
are often hired instead of lawyers to solve them by negotiating out-of-court
settlements (these cases, classified by the police as minji kainyû
bôryoku, are described in more detail below). The link
between politicians and the yakuza at the
national level became weaker after the uncovering of the involvement in the
Lockheed-scandal (1976) of Kodama Yoshio (1911-1984), the great fixer and
mediator between mainstream politicians, yakuza and
ultranationalists. In the 1960s and
1970s yakuza were mobilized for strike-breaking and as an
‘anti-communist force’ (for this story see Ino 1992). On at least one occasion, the late Kanemaru Shin, at one time
deputy prime minister of Japan, used yakuza to quell
campaigns by rightists against himself (1990; Asahi Shimbun November 6 1992). Former prime minister Takeshita Noboru was also accused of using yakuza
during an election campaign in 1987 (Asahi Shimbun November 4 1992). I do not have the space to discuss in detail the connections
between conservative politics and the yakuza, who were
once seen as a stabilizing factor within Japanese society. But it can reasonably be argued that yakuza up
to now have enjoyed a certain ‘political protection’ - even though it was usually (ultra-conservative) politicians who
made use of the yakuza rather than the other way round (Ino
1992:259f.). There may well
be other factors as well behind the fact that the yakuza
are a well-established institution in Japan.
As long as society as a whole does not change so drastically as to
render the yakuza superfluous, law and law enforcement
can only set boundaries to limit the activities of the yakuza,
but they will not make them disappear.
It can well be argued that the existence of organized crime (complete
with names and addresses as in the case of the yakuza)
might be better for society than disorganized crime en masse. I contend that this is also the tacit
understanding of the authorities in Japan.
In the following I want to demonstrate the effects that lawmaking can have
on organized crime in some detail, using the 1992 legislation as an example. The effects of legislation The
anti-yakuza law of 1992 is officially called bôryokudanin ni yoru
futô na kôi nado no bôshi ni kansuru hôritsu
("Law Pertaining to Unjust Activities by Yakuza"),
and it is also abbreviated to bôryokudan taisakuhô,
or simply bôtaihô ("Yakuza Countermeasures
Law"). The yakuza
used to call it simply ‘the new law’ (shinpô). In order to enact a new law, legitimation
and some sort of moral enterprise is necessary. The problems that were troubling the police in the years before
the new law took effect can be seen from the annual Police White Paper (Keisatsu
Hakusho) on public security (or insecurity) for 1991. One
perceived threat was the invasion of the yakuza into the lives of ordinary citizens and
their inroads into the business community.
Rising figures for so-called ‘violent interventions in civil affairs’ (minji
kainyû bôryoku) were presented, comprising things
like debt-collecting, money-lending, bill-discounting, bankruptcy affairs, real
estate disputes, and out-of-court settlement of traffic accidents etc. (see
e.g. Keisatsuchô 1991:116). Since
the end of the eighties more than 20,000 such interventions had been coming to
the attention of the police annually, though only an estimated one-tenth of
them actually lead to an indictment (Yamada 1994:211). Another
problem stressed in the White Paper is that of jiage
deals. Jiage literally means ‘land raising’ and refers to the
practice of forcing up prices of real estate and the forceful eviction of
recalcitrant tenants from land or premises needed for new projects. During the years of the bubble economy
yakuza were often employed by real estate companies to intimidate occupants.
Ample remuneration and acquisition of knowledge concerning land speculation
enabled the yakuza to set up real estate firms
themselves. A further area
of operation that is seen as dangerous was company racketeering, the operations
of the infamous sôkaiya[5]. Police also spoke of a general intrusion
into economic systems, of an ‘economic mafia’, and of illegal profiteering
disguised as legal through so-called ‘front companies’. The investment of yakuza
income into legal spheres of business such as real estate and securities also
made the police nervous. The 1992 law
can be seen in part as a response to this advance of the yakuza
into the world of high finance. Organized
crime making inroads into legal business is a well-documented transnational
tendency. It is described extensively by Arlacchi (1986) for the Italian mafia
in general, and by Gambetta and Reuter (1995) for the Sicilian mafia and U.S.
Cosa Nostra. Granting protection, settling disputes, and monopolizing some of
the shadier areas of business are seen internationally as well-established
features of organized crime. Reputations both individual and generic, and brand
images suggested by names such as ‘mafia’, ‘yakuza’
or ‘Yamaguchi-gumi’ are the most important assets in this ‘industry of
protection’ – the title of the first chapter of a compelling study of the
mafia by Gambetta (1993).[6] The Bôtaihô
permits a Public Safety Commission to designate a yakuza
gang as one subject to the measures contained in the Law when certain
pre-conditions are met. Members of the shitei
bôryokudan (‘designated underworld gangs’) then become the
‘object’ of chûshi meirei, injunctions to stop certain
‘improper’ activities (futô na kôi) as specified
in the Law. In case of recidivism an
order to prevent recurrence (saihatsu bôshi meirei)
can be issued. The activities that can
thus be prohibited include demanding undue donations, protection or hush money,
collecting debts at high interest rates, demanding the improper waiver of an
obligation, private arrangements for compensation of traffic accidents,
requests for improper loans, claims for money or goods on a false pretext, and
so on. One can easily see from this
list that the ‘new’ areas of profiteering were the main target of the new
legislation. Besides these, coercion or
enticement in recruitment of juveniles, hindering someone from leaving the
gang, forcing someone to slice off his little finger (yubitsume, a
common penalty or gesture of apology for blunders) have also become objects of
the new law (for a detailed discussion of the Law see Endô 1992). Another widely
discussed measure is the ban on the use of yakuza
offices for three months (extendable to six) when gang wars break out. This provision can be seen as a concession
to pressure by the public to clamp down on yakuza more severely, especially in
times of gang warfare. A long feud
broke out in 1985 after the murder of Takenaka Masahisa, the boss of the
Yamaguchi-gumi, and the secession of a group calling itself the
Ichiwa-kai. It lasted until this latter
group was ‘destroyed’ and Watanabe Yoshinori, the current Yamaguchi-gumi boss,
was chosen in 1989. Several non-yakuza-bystanders
were killed both during this feud and During this feud and during the attack on
the Yamaguchi-gumi's so-called ‘Number Two’, Takumi Masaru, on 28 August 1997,
and this cost the yakuza a lot of sympathy with the public ( a description of
the backdrop to Takumi's murder and his biography can be found in Mizoguchi
1997). Mizoguchi goes so far as to
allege that the new law was drawn up with the Yamaguchi-gumi as its principal
target (Mizoguchi 1992:246). Just one year and
one month after the Bôtaihô came into
force, a revision of the law was enacted.
This shows how quickly legislators have to react to new developments and
their need to constantly fine-tune their legal instruments. In the revision a range of further ‘economic’
actions came under the scope of chûshi meirei,
such as compensation for losses in securities, manipulation of shares, the loan
business, remuneration for clearing real estate or premises, obstruction of
auctions etc. The stipulations
concerning recruitment of juveniles became stricter: handing out of pocket
money to juveniles or compelling them to get tattooed has also become liable to
prosecution (Asahi Shimbun
February 27 1993). The latest
revision took effect on October 1 1997.
Here, I believe, it can be clearly shown that legislation and police
work is mainly reactive rather than proactive.
Chûshi meirei were up to this date only servable on
individual (full-fledged) gang members.
This led to the practice of gang members working alternately on the same
victim. To prevent this dodging of
ordinances, the new revision made them servable on the superior or boss. They can also be served on non-yakuza if
they are ‘associate members’ or if a non-yakuza is directed
by a yakuza to commit acts forbidden by the Bôtaihô. This is a reaction to the growing
‘periphery’ of yakuza syndicates, in which legal companies
‘fraternize’ with yakuza (so called kigyô shatei[7] or
‘corporate brothers’). Debt collection
was also made more difficult by the new provisions (BTHKS 1997). The yakuza response But of course
the yakuza also closely watch every step the law enforcement
agencies take, and they react accordingly.
As soon as the debate on the new law started, the yakuza
began to organize study meetings with lawyers in order to become familiar with
it. The Yamaguchi-gumi issued a
circular to its directly affiliated gangs, ordering them to transform
themselves into joint-stock companies.
By February 1992 half of them had achieved this goal. Already in 1991 more than 1,000
Yamaguchi-gumi offices had had their emblems (daimon)
dismantled, while many gangs had also removed their membership lists, their
articles of association, photos of former oyabun (bosses) and
other such paraphernalia. All this was
intended to help camouflage the fact that the premises were being used as yakuza
offices. Some smaller gangs at the
lower end of the hierarchy simply moved to a new place where the police could
not track them down. There were
internal notifications strictly forbidding fraternization with police officers,
saying that visits by policemen should be declined and no information should be
given, even in the case of arrest. All
this indicates a refusal to cooperate with police. At the same time control of information within the Yamaguchi-gumi
was tightened. Important information
was kept in the upper echelons of the hierarchy, contacts by fax were
discouraged and public telephones recommended (Yamada 1994: 186ff., 210, 243
and 253). The statistics
of yakuza membership show some interesting
characteristics. Between 1991, the year
before the Bôtaihô, and the end of 1996, total
membership of the yakuza fell by 11,000. During these five
years the number of formal members (kôseiin)
fell by 27.9 percent, resulting in a rise of the ratio of associate members (junkôseiin)
of the total yakuza force from roughly 30 to 42.4 percent
in 1996. Many full members retired,
taking on the status of associate member, as which they were not covered by the
Bôtaihô
- a trend which was countered by the Law’s revision of October
1997. In 1996 there were 46,000 active
members of 3,120 gangs, surrounded and aided by 33,900 ‘associate’ members,
putting the total yakuza numbers at 79,900. Around two-thirds of them were organized
under the big three syndicates: the Yamaguchi-gumi, Sumiyoshi-kai and
Inagawa-kai. Twenty-four gangs are
designated as shitei bôryokudan. According to
police an average of 220 gangs a year were being dissolved in the mid-1990s
(the numbers are given in Bôzono 1998: 79f. and Keisatsuchô
1997:183). Nevertheless this ‘decrease’
in the number of gangsters and gangs is still within the range of ‘natural’
fluctuations, given the poor overall economic situation. As a matter of fact the Yamaguchi-gumi
quickly banned more than 1,000 of its members in the year of the new law. It tried to get rid of members who had
become a burden, such as drug addicts, those in debt, and ‘under-performers’
who were not fulfilling their duties.
This is a reversal of a long-standing expansionist policy: instead of expansion at all costs the new
line stresses quality rather than quantity, the aim being to reduce overall
members and "nurture an elite" (Yamada 1994: 258, 270). The fall in the number of registered yakuza
can therefore be interpreted as a rational decision by the management of an
enterprise deciding to reduce staff during a period of economic recession,
rather than as a glorious success for the police. The
Yamaguchi-gumi has also been cutting down on expenses. The internal money flow is restricted and
the monthly burden of payments alleviated.
The Yamaguchi-gumi is organized in the form of a pyramid. At the top is
the ‘boss of bosses’ with an executive committee and advisers, forming the governing
board, which consists of some twenty bosses.
Watanabe, the Yamaguchi-gumi don, has about 100 ‘fictive children’ (kobun)
or direct subordinates. The board and
the kobun form the mother organization and they are called chokkei
kumichô (directly affiliated bosses). They are at the same time the leaders of
locally active organizations. These
groups in turn have further gangs affiliated to them in up to three further
organizational tiers. Money flows from
the bottom to the top, i.e. the affiliated groups pay monthly royalties for the
use of the name Yamaguchi-gumi, a kind
of licensing or franchising fee that is called jônôkin by
the police. Yakuza simply call it a
‘membership subscription’. The groups
at the lowest end pay some \10,000 a month.
The gangs of the kobun of Watanabe paid \850,000 per month, the members of the board
paid \1,050,000. These subscriptions
were lowered by \200,000 for the kobun in the spring of 1994 and lowered again to a
monthly fee of \500,000 with effect from January 1998. From the beginning of 1998 the monthly dues
of board members were also reduced, to \700,000 (Asahi Shimbun December 19 1997). These are austerity measures, so to speak. It is also said that the Yamaguchi-gumi is
trying to save money by holding simpler, less expensive ceremonies. The bosses have also changed their
ostentatious life-styles. Watanabe is
even said to be speaking about ‘honorable poverty’ as a new motto (Yamada et
al. 1994:290 and 309). This too can be
perceived as an adaptation to economically bad times. Ways of generating
revenues are also being adjusted to the needs and necessities of the long
recession. Here some examples of how
quickly the yakuza can adapt to new developments can be
seen. During the height of the
so-called ‘bubble economy’, yakuza were involved
in the overheated financial and real estate market, mostly in jiage-transactions. This meant that they harassed landowners or
tenants until they vacated the object of speculation they were occupying. Ironically the yakuza
are now increasingly involved in the opposite kind of activity. It is they who occupy pieces of land, houses
or business premises which are to be sold off because they were used as
collateral for loans. The borrower has
defaulted, and in order to get its money back the bank or housing loan company
wants to sell the collateral. The yakuza
are obstructing this action and disrupting foreclosure auctions, using the same
means and the same savvy with which they formerly evicted tenants (for a case
study see The Daily Yomiuri May
27 1997, while a racy description of a case in which two rival yakuza gangs
were involved can be found in Seymour 1996:82-88[8]). Another
business opportunity - typical in times of recession - is intervention in the
liquidation of bankrupt firms. The
police have established a special new task force to deal with debt collection -
a field in which the yakuza have become increasingly
conspicuous involved in recent years (Keisatsuchô 1997:184). One can see here that yakuza
are highly flexible, innovative, and aggressive entrepreneurs. However it is mostly the big syndicates with
their personnel, know-how, and capital, which can do big business. Small gangs are still dependent on
traditional income sources. It seems
that a polarization has developed between the business elite and the rank and
file, or as an in-house police researcher put it: between the "kings and
beggars" (Uchida 1990:41). Wether because
of the recession or the impact of the new law, there has even been a rise in
cases of burglaries and robberies involving yakuza (Asahi
Shimbun November 12
1997), kinds of crimes that they have traditionally despised. Yakuza have also
moved into fields that used to be spurned as insufficiently lucrative. Since the 1990s they have become
increasingly involved in human trafficking of Chinese nationals, most of them
men. The trafficking of women from
South East Asian countries has been organized by yakuza
since the 1960s, but cases of smuggling male (would-be) workers into Japan were
rare even during the bubble era’ (Herbert 1996:28ff. and 64ff. where I
underestimated the later involvement of yakuza). The surge in cases of illegal alien
smuggling also indicates closer ties between yakuza
and Chinese gangs abroad as well as those operating in Japan (e.g. The Daily
Yomiuri January 21
1997). Conclusion: yakuza on the
defensive Before and
after the Bôtaihô was enacted the press launched
an extensive information campaign, naturally with strong support from the
police (cf. also the survey on the effects of the new law in its first year in
Keisatsuchô 1993, which was extensively quoted in the mass media). At the same time new centers for combating yakuza
were founded all over the country. These centers now handle around one third of
the over 30,000 annual complaints and requests for advice stemming from the new
law, the rest being dealt with by the police (the number of consultations is
more than eight times higher than the number of chûshi meirei
issued annually concerning unlawful activities prohibited by the Bôtaihô -
an indication that only a fraction of complaints are actually met with
sanctions). One of the effects of the
information campaign can be seen in the changed consciousness of the public. Yakuza complain of
fewer requests for their services from ordinary citizens: this is not only due
to the recession, but also due to the fact that more people now think it is
wrong to employ yakuza for their own purposes or to solve civil disputes. The new law also encourages them to go to
the police. Owners of restaurants or
bars refuse payment of protection money or resist being indirectly ‘taxed’ by yakuza
through being forced to buy overpriced goods, e.g. New Year decorations (Yamada
1994: 275ff.). The yakuza
are therefore more isolated and cut off from their former clientele. This trend, together with the tarnishing of
their image, has been a blow to the yakuza. It came as a shock and the ‘psychological
effect’ of the Bôtaihô may be
stronger than the actual legal procedures connected with it, as Yamanouchi
Yukio, scriptwriter, lawyer, and former legal consultant to the Yamaguchi-gumi
has suggested it in an interview I conducted with him on December 9 1997. Another problem the yakuza
face is that the average age of gang members is rapidly rising. Recruiting has become more difficult
(Hômu Sôgô Kenkyûsho 1989:349). The image of yakuza has been tarnished and
youngsters seem to avoid them because they see the job as too demanding, dirty
and dangerous. These trends can be
summed up in the catch-phrase yakuza-banare (‘parting
from the yakuza’), which Yamanouchi repeatedly used when I interviewed him. The yakuza are on the defensive right now,
but they are also restructuring their organizations and adopting
counter-measures. The biggest gangs for
instance hold so called ‘gokudô-summits’ in
order to avoid conflicts and especially open gang warfare, because this would
damage their image in the eyes of the public and consequently also damage
business. Almost all concerted police
actions against yakuza have been made in direct or indirect
response to some long-lasting gang feud or other. In the case of the Bôtaihô
the unprecedented scale of the war between the Yamaguchi-gumi and the
Ichiwa-kai was described as the main motive for the new legislation by a
representative of the police (Iwahashi 1998:2). Yakuza know this and there have been several
Yamaguchi-gumi internal notifications seeking to stop unnecessary disputes
(Yamada 1994:254ff.). These moves are
also reactions to the new public mood.
Maybe it can be generally said that the yakuza have
been cut down to their pre-bubble-status.
They will adjust to the new situation and the result will be a new
equilibrium. But it is hard to assess
which has actually hit the yakuza worse: the new legislation, or the recession. When the latter is over, it will be seen how
far the yakuza will recover. They will
certainly not just vanish: there are still too many reasons for their
existence. The mere rewriting of laws
will not remove organized crime from Japan - for this it is far too pervasive,
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Melbourne: Trans Pacific Pr. 2000, 143-158 [1]Yakuza here signifies the individual mobster as well as Japanese-style organized crime. [2]Gokudô is a term popular among yakuza to denote themselves. [3] I am grateful to the author for allowing me to read this excellent study prior to publication, as well as for insights and ideas. [4]Burakumin are ethnically Japanese and were are pariah-like caste in the feudal class system, which was abolished after the Meiji-restauration (1868). They were assigned jobs that were considered "impure" like slaughtering of animals or leather processing. Discrimination against people with burakumin-heritage is still rampant. An estimated 3 million Japanese are of burakumin-origin. [5] Sôkaiya are racketeers who blackmail corporations by threatening to disrupt the annual shareholders’ meetings by asking awkward questions, though conversely they are also used by the corporations to ‘manage’ these meetings in some cases (Kaplan and Dubro 1986:170-1) [6] Gambetta applies economic theory most cogently to explain the
emergence and prevalence of mafia firms in Sicily. He makes several references
to the yakuza and it would be a rewarding task
to apply his theoretical framework to them, though this is beyond the scope of
this paper. Structural analogies between Mafiosi and yakuza abound, but so do cultural and other differences, which a more
detailed study would have to take carefully into account. [7]The police prefers the term "front company" (furonto kigyô). They are managed by relatives of yakuza or ex-yakuza or merely sponsored by yakuza and used for money laundering. During the last five years well over 200 furonto per annum have been uncovered by police, through arrests resulting from legal infringements (Keisatsuchô 1997:186). [8]Seymour presents a lively, witty account of a three month period spent hanging out with yakuza. He witnessed a remarkeble range of activities including an ammunition transaction, nocturnal shooting practice, traditional gambling, even the rare import of cocaine and some ugly violent beatings. However, some linguistic blunders of a very fundamental nature cast a shadow of doubt on the credibility of his study and the accuracy of his rendering of dialogues and stories, e.g. hari-maki instead of haramaki (26) Shimizu no Jirôchô is made into Jinrochô (26 and in the rest of the book), des is given instead of desu (172), shinjinue instead of shinjinrui (181ff.), Setaguya instead of Setagaya (192) and sensai instead of sensei (198ff.) |