TheYakuza and Bubble The Effect of Economic Changes on the Yakuza

IB # 003542-002 This essay evaluates the correlation between Japan's economic changes and the yakuza's activity during the late 20th century. It attempts to investigate how the bubble economy and the bubble burst affected the criminal underworld. This essay begins with a brief explanation of the mechanism of the emergence of the bubble economy in the late 1980s and a summary of the social structure of the Yakuza. Using statistics and resources extracted from the Japanese National Police Agency, the essay will narrow the topic into the Yakuza's activity, mainly digging into four areas that these syndicates were involved in: the Jiageya, "land sharks"; the Yojimbo, protectors of the construction sites; drug smuggling, the traditional and major fund source of the Yakuza; and the Sokaiya, the corporate extortionists. Then, the essay will summarize how and why the economic boom came to a sudden end, introducing the readers into the 1990s. This section will explain the collapse of the Yakuza's business strategy and the emergence of new business model such as Songiriya and debt-recollection that enablin