"Criminals" By Definition, want to work in Secret.
The police can't arrest somebody they don't even know exists.
Conversely, being known as a local kingpin is
quite problematic. That's why gangsters
don't just hand out business cards. Except the Yakuza
just might.
These members of Japanese organized crime gangs
have business cards and offices that proudly display gang names with logos
as if they were selling insurances. Considering that Yakuza are
routinely breaking the law, it is hard to understand why
the police doesn't just go to their offices, round them all up,
and put them behind bars. Well, for starters you can't
just convict somebody for being a Yakuza.
You can convict them for crimes committed,
But those still have to be proven for every single person on
the defendant's bench. Still, running organized crime in the open
like this without police interference seems
odd. There must be something that can be done.
And of course there is. The problem is not that it's impossible
to stop Yakuza. It is that not everyone wants to.
Lets see how this came to be. Back when taxes were still paid in
rice, gamblers roamed the highways of Japan,
making their living by ripping off locals.
In one card game they used to play, a hand of 8, 9, and 3
was completely worthless.
So, as a play on the miserable reputation,
the gamblers themselves took the name 8,9,3 = Ya,ku,za.
Add some peddlers selling junk and stolen stuff, and
other violent misfits, mix them all together, and you got the modern Yakuza. Their influences and profits shot up
as they started forming gangs, and employing security
personnel, which proved quite useful.
Is someone owing them money? Got it.
Someone working their territory? Taken care of.
Someone disrespectful? Not anymore. From then on, it was
Yakuza ruling the streets. Fast forward a few years,
Yakuza have infiltrated virtually every corner of Japan's economy.
As you get bigger, you get more attention.
This is where Yakuza proved themselves to be
public relations masterminds. Despite their petty crook origins,
Yakuza were determined to present themselves as honorable
vigilantes, not crime gangs, mind you, but
chivalrous groups
Through some creative ancestry research, Yakuza connected themselves to
popular folk tale heroes and essentially declared themselves
to be Japanese Robin Hoods.
They don't steal, they just take from the rich...
And the poor... and everybody in between... and keep it.
That made for a good enough story
And amazingly, people bought it.
As Yakuza now has become a major political force,
they started to work closely with those in power.
Whenever government faced opposition, be it from politicians,
protesters or striking workers, Yakuza came to the rescue.
And peacefully convinced them that they were wrong.
Also some violence might have been used
You cant really have the police beat down unarmed protesters without looking really bad
But if these armed thugs we're absolutely NOT working with do it...,
that's a different thing.
In exchange for all this hard work, Yakuza were pretty much left alone.
Of course, officials weren't going to go after the guys
acting as a problem solver and an election "street team".
Not even the police was really said on fighting Yakuza.
The way they saw it, there was going to be a crime one way or the other.
The only difference being Yakuza, unlike underground criminals
and misfits roaming the streets, were ready to cooperate,
and even help to keep the streets crime free.
Both citizens and the police saw Yakuza
gangsters as a necessary evil that kept petty criminals
off the streets. Yakuza didn't actually
make Japan safer, they just made it seem safer.
The problem with that logic is you can't fight both
street crime and organized crime. You don't need one to fight the another.
There's no reason to leave police's work to criminals.
That's what they went for anyway.
As long as Yakuza played ball with the authorities and have the public on their side, there was no need to hide...
"Was," that is!
Because there was somewhere along the way, things actually got better.
You see when you have a lot of armed criminals in the place,
no matter how disciplined they are, there is going to be
in-fighting and gang wars. When violent erupts,
it breaks down the whole facade of the noble robin-hood Yakuza.
And that's what happened! One fight too many tarnished the nicely painted Yakuza image
and people thought "wait a min.., they really are the criminals". So, the government made new
laws to affect, if you fight Yakuza,
the police actually made it effort to go after them.
Most importantly, state officials and medias
ditched the word "Yakuza" from the less romantic term
"violent groups". It worked!
Many of their income resources dried up, the number shrank
and those prominent gang name plates and
locals started to vanish from the offices.
Right now looks like Yakuza on the way out
and despite all excuses, that is a good thing.