Comparative Persective On Organized Crime

This is a comparison paper on different Mafia groups throught the world. It touches on the japanese and US Mafia groups.

Introduction

The Mafia is a criminal secret society of men which first developed in the mid-19th century in Sicily. An offshoot emerged on the East Coast of the United States during the late 19th century following waves of emigration. The mafia is active in several illegal fields, but also tending to exercise sovereignty functions вЂ" normally belonging to public authorities вЂ" over a specific territory. It is therefore a form of criminality implying some conditions: the existence of a modern state claiming the exclusive right to legitimate monopoly over violence; an economy that is free of feudal bonds; the existence of violent people able to operate on their own, imposing their mediation even on the ruling classes (wikipedia.com).

The Mafia has controlled everything from the street corner drug trade to the highest levels of government. Although glorified by movies and television, stalked by law enforcement officials, constantly targeted by their enemies and sometimes friends, mobsters live violent and very often brief lives. The Mafia at its core is about one thing -- money. Still, there are secret rituals, complicated rules and tangled webs of family loyalty. Although the mafia originally started in Sicily in the early 19th century, organized crime has spread to other area’s such as Russia, Japan, China and many other countries around the world. Mafia is not just confined to Italy anymore as it may of one been.

Please find below a brief history of the Italian Mafia and the Japanese Mafia, and the similarities and differences between the two groups.

The Japanese Mafia

Yakuza also known as Japanese Mafia are known in Japan as bÐ*ÐŒryokudan, a Japanese term for "violence groups”. The word yakuza means 8-9-3. Ya means 8, ku is 9, za is 3. it comes from Japans counterpart to Black Jack, Oicho- Kabu. The generally difference between the both card games are that in Oicho- Kabu the cards rate shall be 19 instead of 21. As you see, the sum of 8, 9 and 3, is 20, which is the worst hand in Oicho-Kabu. It's from there the name, yakuza, comes from, they without worth for the society. The yakuza took this name because the Ya-Ku-Za hand requires the most skill and obviously, the least luck in order to win (i.e., the hand is the worst that a player can receive based on luck of the draw, so only an expert could have enough skill to counteract his bad luck and still win with such a hand (web.telia.com).

The Yakuza are Japan what the mafia is to Sicily or the United States. Yakuzas origin can be followed far back as the year 1600, when men known as kabuki-mono (the crazy ones), were recognized by the local authorities. Their odd style of clothing, the distinct haircuts and relatively bad behavior easily got everybody's attention.

Italian Mafia

The Italian Mafia originated in Sicily in around the year 1865 AD, when some powerful Sicilians or Sicilian families engaged in violent and criminal activity. The island of Sicily, with a tradition of resistance to outside domination saw the rise of the Sicilian Mafia in the second half of the nineteenth century. Between 1925 and 1929, the Italian Fascists made an effort to get rid of the mafia and re-establish government control of violence, but prefect Ceasare Mori (the man putting the effort to effect), was dismissed when he targeted powerful people supporting the Fascist regime. Mori's effort did replace Mafia control of the relationship between peasants and landowners with state control, but it didn't solve the problem. The Mafia restored itself when fascism fell and got a further boost when the Allied occupation in 1943 turned to local powers for help in governing.

Similarities and Differences of both Mafia’s

The Yakuza generate there income in a variety of ways similar to that of the mafia. Illegal gambling, prostitution, union exploitation and drugs are just some of the ways the Yakuza generates much of their income, although a majority of yakuza income comes from protection rackets in shopping, entertainment and red-light districts within their territory. This is mainly due to the reluctance of such businesses to seek help from the police. The yakuza has ties in big business such as construction and financial firms, as well as ties to many government and local police officials. Today the mafia is involved in a broad spectrum of illegal activities. This includes murder, extortion, drug trafficking, corruption of public officials, gambling, infiltration of legitimate businesses, labor racketeering, loan sharking, prostitution, pornography, tax fraud schemes, and most notably today, stock manipulation schemes. Though many of there activities are similar some are different.

During the formation of the yakuza, they adopted the traditional Japanese hierarchical structure of oyabun-kobun where kobun owe their allegiance to the oyabun. The code of jingi was developed where loyalty and respect became a way of life. Similar to the Mafia where the soldiers and capos are loyal the head or a boss of a family or the Capofamiglia, the yakuza show an even deeper rooted loyalty. The oyabun-kobun relationship is formalized by ceremonial sharing of sake from a single cup. This ritual is not exclusive to the yakuza it is also commonly performed in traditional Japanese Shinto weddings, and may have been a part of "sworn brotherhood" relationships. Yakuza groups are headed by an Oyabun or KumichÐ*ÐŒ (the family head) who gives orders to his subordinates, the kobun. In this