Can Japan Crack Down on Its <i> Yakuza</i> ?

The delicate order of Japanese society has long granted tacit legitimacy to those hovering around the fringes of Tokyo’s Establishment. Nowhere has this been more apparent than in the long toleration of well-organized networks of gangsters known as yakuza.

That came into focus in the recent Tokyo stock scandals. Japan’s two largest crime syndicates--the Inagawakai and Yamaguchigumi--borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars from brokerages and banks to finance a complex web of land and stock deals. The scheme reached into elite businesses, eventually bringing down the presidents of Nikko Securities Co. and Nomura Securities Co.

It was the most blatant example of the widespread influence of the yakuza community, which like organized crime elsewhere has typically run gambling, prostitution, drugs and extortion rings. The government and ordinary citizens routinely accommodated the gangsters, known for their odd rituals, elaborate tattoos and missing pinkies (a sacrificial sign of allegiance). Their notoriety has even intrigued Hollywood, which used it as entertainment fodder in two films, “The Yakuza” with Robert Mitchum in 1975 and “Black Rain” with Michael Douglas in 1989.

Now it’s fight-back time.

The Japanese legislature recently passed a law aimed at boryokudan (violent groups), considered synonymous with the yakuza and made up largely of ex-convicts. Beginning next spring, the police can arrest gangsters who do nothing more than talk loudly in neighborhood coffee shops in an effort to scare customers away--a yakuza tactic used to extort protection money from shop owners. The law also seeks to prevent gangs from recruiting minors and provides for citizen complaint centers.

A crackdown a decade ago on the sokaiya-- shady characters who work with yakuza to demand money from corporations in return for controlling shareholder meetings--drastically cut the number of these operators.

Change in Japan often occurs at a glacial pace. Like most other Japanese traditions, the yakuza have deep roots, dating back to the 17th Century when disciplined gangs ran gambling dens along highways.

Many of the nation’s estimated 88,600 gangsters are from groups traditionally discriminated against in Japan: Koreans and outcasts known as burakumin whose work in butchering and leather tanning was considered unclean.

The yakuza were once helpful in keeping disorder in check and in providing a “home” for delinquents. Police borrowed yakuza forces after World War II to suppress riots by Koreans and Chinese.

Today, it’s estimated that the yakuza take in $10 billion a year. Some of that money is going abroad. The yakuza have become increasing bold in setting up shop outside of Japan. A crackdown by Tokyo is in order.