[toyg]

Bit of a laugh about "uncorrupted authorities" (the Japanese political system is many things but hardly uncorrupted), but the uniqueness of Japanese crime structure is real. However, that structure relies on another addiction that is basically as powerful as drugs, completely legal, and relatively well-accepted by society: pachinko.

To me, it looks like any society with some form of inequality will inevitably need a way for the lower classes to escape their daily struggles. In some countries it's hardcore religion; in some it's drugs; in some it's alcohol; in some it's mindless gambling... Affinity for one or the other depends on a number of factors, but eventually we have to accept at least one of them if we want to keep society stable in the long run.

[nihonde]

Well, yes I have to agree about pachinko. I was thinking more in terms of law enforcement and organized crime having a common cause in keeping foreign criminal syndicates out of Japan. Say what you will about the integrity of that arrangement, but I will never once walk the streets of Kyoto or Nagoya or just about anywhere else in Japan and worry about being caught in some crossfire, being mugged by a junkie, or being shaken down by a cop. On the other hand, I know that legitimate businesses pay protection money and I can see a yakuza HQ office from my penthouse apartment. All of that is a far cry from the insane, desperate chaos that I left behind on the streets of America.

[krapp]

>. I was thinking more in terms of law enforcement and organized crime having a common cause in keeping foreign criminal syndicates out of Japan.

But let's be honest, the yakuza want to keep foreign criminal syndicates out of Japan because they want a monopoly on organized crime in Japan, not because they want to keep the Japanese people safe from foreign criminals. The yakuza deal in extortion, blackmail, drugs, guns, prostitution, human trafficking, all of the same criminal activity any other syndicate does. They may not be as openly violent as other mafias, but they're not nice people.

Claiming they have a "common cause" with the police is to assume that the police have no issue with crime in Japan so long as it's Japanese committing those crimes, which I think cannot be true, and would be a sign of dereliction of duty if it were. From what I understand the yakuza are losing power in Japan because the police have been effectively cracking down on them... they're not comrades in arms.

[nihonde]

Japan's organized crime is still the biggest and best organized in the world.

They very clearly play a role in keeping petty criminals from China, Korea, and South Asia off the streets of Japan, and it's no secret that the keisatsukan will turn a blind eye when the public interest is served. It's hard to overstate the tranquility of Japan in terms of crime. Yes, there is a rather open underworld of prostitution and that presumably includes human trafficking. But I've met gaijin girls in my language classes here who work as hostesses, and they clearly felt like they escaped from places like Indonesia and Philippines, and even in the seedy underworld here they had more opportunities than where they came from. (Anecdotal to be sure, but also first-hand.)

Also, I know restauranteurs who happily pay protection money and feel like it's a valuable service for them. Go figure.

The truly dirty business of Yakuza is moving heroin abroad--especially into the US--and that just isn't tolerated on the home front.

[krapp]

>But I've met gaijin girls in my language classes here who work as hostesses, and they clearly felt like they escaped from places like Indonesia and Philippines, and even in the seedy underworld here they had more opportunities than where they came from. (Anecdotal to be sure, but also first-hand.)

>Also, I know restauranteurs who happily pay protection money and feel like it's a valuable service for them. Go figure.

Although, one wouldn't expect them to publicly admit otherwise.