{"title":"Yakuza Grey: The Shrinking of the Il/legal Nexus and its Repercussions on Japanese Organised Crime","authors":"Martina Baradel","doi":"10.1080/17440572.2020.1813114","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT For decades Japanese criminal syndicates, collectively known as the yakuza, enjoyed a highly visible and semi-legal status that positioned them in a grey area. Accordingly, also much of the yakuza’s business lies in a grey zone: night-entertainment, different forms of gambling, front companies and (fake) social movements. However, following the introduction of new stricter regulations, the yakuza are struggling to keep operating in the legal and semi-legal areas of their business, and have been pushed to explore new modi operandi, using (semi)legal actors and loopholes. Based on fieldwork conducted in Japan with current and ex-yakuza members, this paper analyses the yakuza’s response to the reduced opportunities to engage in legal activities. It is argued that this determined an increased involvement with predatory crimes for low-ranking members, while the decreased power in controlling markets allowed for the emergence of novel forms of crime.","PeriodicalId":12676,"journal":{"name":"Global Crime","volume":"22 1","pages":"74 - 91"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4000,"publicationDate":"2020-08-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17440572.2020.1813114","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Global Crime","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17440572.2020.1813114","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"CRIMINOLOGY & PENOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 2
Abstract
ABSTRACT For decades Japanese criminal syndicates, collectively known as the yakuza, enjoyed a highly visible and semi-legal status that positioned them in a grey area. Accordingly, also much of the yakuza’s business lies in a grey zone: night-entertainment, different forms of gambling, front companies and (fake) social movements. However, following the introduction of new stricter regulations, the yakuza are struggling to keep operating in the legal and semi-legal areas of their business, and have been pushed to explore new modi operandi, using (semi)legal actors and loopholes. Based on fieldwork conducted in Japan with current and ex-yakuza members, this paper analyses the yakuza’s response to the reduced opportunities to engage in legal activities. It is argued that this determined an increased involvement with predatory crimes for low-ranking members, while the decreased power in controlling markets allowed for the emergence of novel forms of crime.
期刊介绍:
Global Crime is a social science journal devoted to the study of crime broadly conceived. Its focus is deliberately broad and multi-disciplinary and its first aim is to make the best scholarship on crime available to specialists and non-specialists alike. It endorses no particular orthodoxy and draws on authors from a variety of disciplines, including history, sociology, criminology, economics, political science, anthropology and area studies. The editors welcome contributions on any topic relating to crime, including organized criminality, its history, activities, relations with the state, its penetration of the economy and its perception in popular culture.