Hazel Inglis/ 9/19/08/ 1:25pm/ global crime
The Japanese National Police Agency (NPA) has estimated that there almost 80,000 members in the Japanese mafia; their mob is also known as the yakuza. Mobs are legal entities in Japan, the bosses socialize with prime ministers, and their fan magazines and comic books are sold at convenience stores. It is estimated that there are more than 800 yakuza front companies in Tokyo alone and they may have set up their own bank in California. The Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission in Japan have identified more than 50 companies tied with organized crime. Since Americans invest billions of dollars in the Japanese stock market, we could be funding the Japanese mob.
The Japanese police forces are aware of mob and their activities but cannot do anything about it because they do not have plea-bargaining, a witness-protection program or witness-relocation programs. One of the biggest hurdles the Japanese police have to deal with is that the kakuzas biggest income is child pornography. This is such a big problem because in Japan it is only illegal to produce and sell child pornography, but it is legal to own child pornography.
The most interesting thing about this article for me is how large Japanese mafia is and another thing is how dumb some of Japans laws seem. The fact that Japanese police are so aware of the kakuza’s activities but they cannot take them down because they do not have the right policies in place is amazing to me. The whole child pornography is interesting because they cannot bust them because it is legal to own it.
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/09
2 comments:
I had no idea that the Japanese had a mafia. Its crazy that some of the funding coming from other countries could be in fact going right into the hands of these people. I also wonder who there can be a law aganist selling pornography, but there isnt one for owning it. That just seems sort of contradictory to me. The government should be doing more to prevent these kind of issues from arising, and it is a shame that they aren't.
The yakuza have been around for a long time, they're nothing new. I admit though that I wasn't aware of their use of child pornography as a means of income. But in a country like Japan where crime rates are much lower than in most other nations, it's interesting to see that this may be in part due to the rigidity of these laws and their inability to quite fit all crimes into their scope. The laws haven't been changing quickly enough to keep up with the changing world.
I went to a lecture a week or so ago called "Japan in the 31st century". One of the issues that was brought up is that in Japan the election districts have not been redone to match the wave of people moving from the rural areas into the city, so rural people's votes count for more.
I think Japan needs to update its laws, but given the state its government is in right now (with the prime minister resigning and all), I don't imagine that the yakuza's illegal activities are currently the top priority.
Post a Comment