NCJ Number
147285
Date Published
1981
Length
280 pages
Annotation
This research focused on the formation of a Japanese organized crime group known as the Yakuza and its social and administrative organization, recruitment patterns, economic activities, and dispute resolution mechanisms.
Abstract
Data were collected over the 1977-1979 period and involved extensive participation observation and structured interviews with the 150-member Yakuza gang. The author was not only concerned with subcultural traits that differentiated the gang from other Japanese groups but also with cultural concepts and values that integrated the gang into the wider society. The Yakuza gang was found to be an integral part of a community web involving a network of powerful individuals from the gang, government, and business sectors. Certain features relating to group orientation and cohesiveness in the social environment discouraged certain crimes committed by lone criminals but enhanced the integration of organized criminals into the wider society. Organizing principles such as fictive kinship and the household and such values as secrecy, reciprocity, indebtedness, and personal and group loyalty were effective internal mechanisms of integration and coordination. Japanese and American organized criminal groups are compared, and additional research information is appended. 91 references and 26 illustrations