July 15, 2015
By MORIO CHOH/ Staff Writer
When gangsters want to quit their life of crime and find a regular job, they can just call the cops.
The National Police Agency is launching a nationwide effort to find employment for fed-up former yakuza after the success of such an effort by police in Fukuoka Prefecture.
“Enhancing cooperation with agencies in other prefectures will lead to more opportunities for former yakuza to find jobs,” said a senior Fukuoka prefectural police official. “That will result in an increasing number of 'come-outers' and weaken the organizational strength of yakuza groups.”
Many former yakuza, called "yamebo," prefer to work outside Fukuoka Prefecture for fear of reprisals from the crime groups that they formerly belonged to. Therefore, it is sometimes difficult for support organizations to find them jobs. The nationwide push should help alleviate this problem.
Gangster organizations in Japan had a total of 53,500 members as of the end of last year, including those who do not belong to such groups but have close ties with them, according to the NPA.
Police and other parties across the country helped 2,930 yakuza to withdraw from their gangs between 2010 and 2014.
Recently, an increasing number of gangsters have been leaving the Kudo-kai crime syndicate in particular.
Kudo-kai, a notorious yakuza organization based in Fukuoka Prefecture, had 790 members as of the end of 2014 but 16 members pulled out last year, according to Fukuoka prefectural police. Twenty-four members also left the syndicate between January and June this year.
Since September, the prefectural police has increased its crackdown on Kudo-kai. It arrested the 68-year-old boss, Satoru Nomura, on murder and other charges, as well as nabbing other senior members.
The number of yamebo has increased for Kudo-kai because it has become unable to exert such a strong influence on its members since the crackdown, according to prefectural police officials.
In one case, a member of Kudo-kai was forced to pay 50,000 yen ($404) to the group each month. He was on a tight budget himself so he paid the contribution from welfare benefits his common-law wife received.
The gangster then asked the prefectural police for support to quit Kudo-kai. The cops put the man in touch with a support organization to assist ex-convicts and others who want to find regular jobs, and he eventually joined a construction firm that has an office outside Fukuoka Prefecture and left the prefecture with his family to work there.
This support organization started helping former and active yakuza quit their syndicates and seek jobs in fiscal 2012, and has since succeeded in finding work for 10 people.
The group has 480 partner companies in the prefecture but only 5 percent of them have offices or other facilities outside the region. That's when the NPA stepped in to help out by forming the nationwide task force linking prefectural police departments to such support groups.
The task force, intended to increase the number of companies that accept yamebo as employees and to introduce a system to share related information on a nationwide basis, is to hold its first meeting in Fukuoka on July 16.
By MORIO CHOH/ Staff Writer