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Journal of Empirical Legal Studies
Volume 15, Issue 1, 192-238, March 2018

Outcaste Politics and Organized Crime inJapan: The Effect of Terminating
Ethnic Subsidies
J. Mark Ramseyer and Eric B. Rasmusen*
In 1969, Japan launched a massive subsidy program for the "burakumin" outcastes. The
subsidies attracted the mob, and the higher incomes now available through organizedcrime attracted many burakumin. Thus, the subsidies gave new support to the tendency
manyJapanese already had to equate the burakumin with the mob. The government ended
the subsidies in 2002. We explore the effect of the termination by merging 30 years ofmunicipality data with a long-suppressed 1936 census of burakumin neighborhoods. We
find that out-migration from municipalities with more burakumin increased after the endof the program. Apparently, the subsidies restrained young burakumin from joining
mainstream society. We also find that despite the end of government-subsidized amenities,
once the subsidies neared their end, real estate prices rose in municipalities withburakumin neighborhoods. With the subsidies gone and the mob in retreat, otherJapanesefound the formerly burakumin communities increasingly attractive places to live.

1. INTRODUCTION
In 2002, the Japanese Diet ended a massive experiment in targeted ethnic subsidies.

The "burakumin" outcastes in Japan historically had faced discrimination. Under the1969 "Special Measures Act" (SMA), the national and local governments began to pay
them massive benefits.' By 2002, the governments had spent 15 trillion yen ($125 billion*Address correspondence to J. Mark Ramseyer, email: ramseyer@laws.harvard.edu. Ramseyer is Mitsubishi
Professor of Japanese Legal Studies, Harvard University; Rasmusen is Dan R. and Catherine M. Dalton Professor,
Kelley School of Business, Indiana University.
We gratefully acknowledge the very helpful comments and suggestions of Tom Ginsburg, Masayoshi Hayashi,
Mathew McCubbins, Curtis Milhaupt, Yoshiro Miwa, Robert Mnookin, Gregory Noble, Alice Ramseyer, Jennifer
Ramseyer, Frances Rosenbluth, Richard Samuels, Rok Spruk, Frank Upham, Mark West, several anonymousreferees, and participants in presentations at the American Law & Economics Association, the Conference on
Empirical Legal Studies, the Harvard Law School, the Harvard University CFIA Japan Program, the N.B.E.R., theUC Berkeley Law School, and the University of Chicago Law School, and the generous financial support of theHarvard Law School.
"'Burakumin" is the term most commonly used in English. It was used widely in Japan during the first half of the20th century, but the currently favored term is "dowa."

192

Outcaste Politics and Organized Crime in Japan193

at the 2002 exchange rate), along with large amounts outside the program.2 The
corruption, distorted hiring, extortion payments, and lost tax revenue tied to the program pushed its social cost higher still.
Many of the burakumin were descendants of people who had worked in ritually
unclean jobs such as butchering and tanning. Some still worked in those jobs. Biologically indistinguishable from other Japanese, they were identifiable primarily by residence-by whether they or their family lived in a "buraku," one of the 5,000 to 6,000
outcaste communities scattered across Japan. The largest of the buraku were famous.
Others were known only to long-time neighbors.
Through these targeted subsidies, the governments built community centers andpublic housing. Although the buildings improved the housing stock, they unambiguously identified the areas as burakumin neighborhoods. Worse, the large revenue atstake attracted the organized crime syndicates, colloquially called the "yakuza."
Burakumin in the criminal syndicates took prominent posts in the best known of theirself-styled civil rights organization, the Burakumin Liberation League (BLL). There,
they masterminded policy, intimidated officials, barred rival claimants to the funds, anddiverted money to their private accounts.
The result, largely acknowledged by the BLL itself, was the diversion of substantial government funds to selected burakumin leaders and the criminal syndicates. City
governments awarded construction contracts to favored companies. They bought theland for the buildings at inflated prices from powerful burakumin. Local tax officials
promised not to audit tax returns of companies certified by the BLL. City halls agreed
to hire burakumin chosen by the BLL. Mainstream businesses paid money to avoid accusations of discrimination. And the syndicates themselves fought each other bitterly overcontrol of the enormous revenue stream.
More poignantly, the program helped to divert burakumin men from the legal
sector. For young burakumin, the targeted subsidies shifted the relative returns to legal
and illegal careers. Given the newfound source of criminal income, many young men
chose illegal activity over the educational investments so essential to joining mainstream
Japan. As more burakumin joined the mob, mainstream Japanese avoided them out of
fear: the mob involvement itself now drove discrimination.
In this article, we examine the results of the government's decision, made in
1996, to terminate the subsidies effective 2002. At roughly the same time, the government decided to attack the mob leadership directly with aggressive police enforcement.
The government fought to halt the corruption and the key role of the mob in the buraku. Toward that end, it both stopped the subsidies, and sent in the police. We measure the combined effect of those concurrent policies.
2

Fifteen trillion yen is the figure routinely cited by authors in the field-e.g., Kadooka (2012:38, 69); Ichinomiya
and Group K21 (2012:126); Mori (2009:78). We have not been able to determine the original source of this figure. In Naikaku (1995), however, the government reports that as of 1993 the municipal governments had spent10.3 trillion yen and the prefectural govemments another 3.56 trillion yen. See also note 12.

3E.g., Kadooka (2004, 2005, 2009, 2012); Miyazaki (2004); Miyazaki and Otani (2000).

194

Ramseyer and Rasmusen

Note that we do not study the government's initial decision to launch the program three decades earlier. Our analysis of the effect of its termination necessarily raises
parallel questions about the effect of its origination and about the partisan dynamics
behind its creation and cessation, but we limit our inquiry to the effects of the
program's end.
For this study, we identify the 5,000+ traditional burakumin communities using along-suppressed 1936 census. We combine the census with demographic and economic
data over 1980 to 2010 for the 1,700+ municipalities in Japan. This includes rural areas,since all of Japan is incorporated. With difference-in-differences regressions, we explore
the effect of the subsidy termination.
The logic is simple. Young burakumin men chose between careers in the mainstream
sector (legal) and the local sector (often criminal). The former required heavy investments
in education; the latter did not. The former lowered public animus toward the burakumin;
the latter exacerbated it. Prior to 2002, subsidies raised the returns to criminal careers,
increased public hostility toward the burakumin, and lowered the relative returns to leaving
the buraku for careers in the Japanese mainstream. When the subsidies ended, the relative
returns switched. Ambitious burakumin now left the buraku for university and neverreturned. The mob and the BLL hemorrhaged members. And other Japanese found theformerly burakumin neighborhoods increasingly attractive places to live.
Our article is in two parts. We begin with a nonstatistical discussion of theinstitutional structure and effect of the subsidy program. We describe the social context(Section II): the burakumin (Section II.A), the organized crime syndicates (Section
II.B), and the changing ties between the two groups (Section II.C). We then discuss thepolice crackdown (Section III), and the nature of the corruption involved (Section IV).
Second, we describe our data (Section V), and use difference-in-differences regressions
to examine the effect of subsidy termination on out-migration and real estate prices(Section VI).

11.
A.

THE BURAKUMIN AND THE CRIMINAL SYNDICATES
The Burakumin

1. Introduction
Writers routinely describe the burakumin as descended from people who worked inritually unclean or otherwise disreputable jobs: butchers, tanners, leather workers, anditinerant peddlers (see Section II.A.5 for more detail).' As David Howell (1996:178) put
it, the forefathers of the burakumin "engaged in occupations that were considered to beunclean, especially those that entailed the pollution of death." The government placed
them below the four major classes of samurai, farmers, artisans, and merchants. In 1871,
4

The "paekjong" in Korea faced much the same situation. However, the massive dislocation and the destructionof family registries during the Korean War seem to have erased them as an identifiable group (Anon. 2012). The
writers who claim that the discrimination against the Korean paekjong still exists seem mostly to be Japanesescholars associated with the BLL (Kotek 2009).

Outcaste Politics and Organized Crime in Japan195

the modernizing government declared the burakumin "liberated."5 At roughly the sametime, however, it created family registries (koseki) within the new municipal governments. These registries sometimes described the newly liberated burakumin as "former
outcastes," as "new commoners," or as affiliated with a burakumin temple. By the mostprecise definition, then, a burakumin is anyone with an ancestor described in the early
1870s registries as a burakumin. Those registries are now closed to public view.
Of the current Japanese population of 127 million, the burakumin number about
1.8 million. In 1936, the government compiled a nationwide census (Chuo yuwa 1936;
described in Section IV.C). It counted 999,700 burakumin.6 Extrapolate 999,700 to 2010by the Japanese population growth rate, and the 1.8 million figure follows. The government conducted another census in 1975, and found only 1.1 million burakumin in the4,374 communities designated under its subsidy program.8 Apparently, 700,000 burakumin either lived in undesignated communities or had migrated into the general public.9
Through a targeted subsidy program, in 1969 the national and local governments
began paying massive amounts of money to the burakumin.1 0 The legislature set theoriginal statute to expire in 10 years, but through a variety of extensions and substitutestatutes the program continued until 2002.11 By the time it ended, the government had-oThe Eta hinin no sho wo haishi mibun shokugyo tomo heimin doyo to su [Abolishing the Categories of Eta and
Hinin, and Equalizing Status and Occupation with Commoners], Dajokan fukoku of Oct. 12, 1871, informallyknown as the Kaiho rei [Emancipation Edict]. See Pharr (1990:77); Hankins (2014:21); Upham (1980:41); Totten& Wagatsuma (1967:34).
'he count almost certainly misses some communities, as we discuss below. In 1871, the government reported a
total burakumin population of 380,000 (Kadooka 2005:24; Price 1967:24; De Vos & Wagatsuma 1967b:115). It
reported a population of 830,000 in 1920. See Chuo yuwa (1936:336); Price (1967:24); De Vos and Wagasuma(1967b:115).
7

Some writers suggest a higher growth rate for the burakumin than for the mainstream population, less becauseof a difference in birth rates than because of migration into the burakumin of the poorest of the mainstream,
who became burakumin by association. See generally Price (1967:13); De Vos and Wagatsuma (1967b:114).
8Asahi (1982:81). In 1963, the government found 1.7 million people (burakumin and non-burakumin) living in
the designated districts (Kadooka 2005:29). Naikaku (1995) reports 2.16 million people (including non-burakumin) living in 4,442 of the 4,603 designated districts in 1993. The burakumin population in the districts was
892,000. For other government censuses, see Shiomi (2012:106 [1987], 107 [1993]); Takagi (1997:48) (1986);
Yamaguchi (2004) (claiming 900,000).
'The BLL itself insists that the burakumin number 3 million-sometimes even 6 million-but seems to lack any
evidence for the claim. See, e.g., Upham (1980:63); Buraku discrimination (n.d.). De Vos and Wagatsuma(1967b:117) write: "The current burakumin population estimates vary from one to three million. The higher figure seems to have been used for political purposes by the leftist outcaste leadership and has worked its way into
the scientific literature as an established fact without solid evidence." To the same effect, see Price (1967:11).
T

oDowa taisakujigyo tokubetsu sochi ho [Special Measures Act for Burakumin Policy Business], Law No. 60 of 1969.

"Chiiki kaizen taisaku tokubetsu sochi ho [Special Measures Act for District Renewal Policy], Law No. 16 of
1982; Chiki kaizen taisaku jigyo ni kakaru kuni no zaiseijo no tokubetsu sochi ni kanuru horitsu [Law Regarding
the Special National Public Finance Measures Relating to Specified Measures for District Renewal Policy], Law
No. 22 of 1987.

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Ramseyer and Rasmusen2
distributed 15 trillion yen.1 From 1969 to 2000, Osaka prefecture alone spent 2.9 trillion yen. Of this, it invested 35.5 percent (1,019 billion) in construction projects.
Although the program improved the burakumin housing stock, it also attracted organized crime. We suspect that voters pressed politicians to end the subsidies in order tostop the ensuing corruption; official accounts declare that the government ended theprogram because the buraku infrastructure had reached mainstream levels. Whatever

the reason, the Diet terminated the subsidies effective 2002.
2. Integration
In truth, the phrase "burakumin community" has long been a misnomer. The communities have always housed people who were not descended from those in the burakumin
registry. Many residents simply moved there for the lower rent. Today, the communities
remain mixed. According to a 1993 government survey, only 41.4 percent of buraku residents were themselves burakumin. The prefectural means ranged from 2.7 percent in a
Kyushu prefecture to 97.9 percent in a small prefecture in central Japan. Two large prefectures with large numbers of burakumin were Hyogo (with Kobe city), where 56.9 percent of the residents of the designated buraku were burakumin, and Fukuoka, thebiggest city in Kyushu, with 36.6 percent (Kadooka 2005:57; Naikaku 1995).
Prior to the late 1960s, burakumin who left the communities and moved into
mainstream society tended either to come from a community's middle class or to be theyounger sons of the community's elite families. The oldest sons of the elite families did
not leave (Donaghue 1967; Cornell 1967:178). They inherited the family property andthe associated obligations within the community. The burakumin from the bottom of
the community did not leave either. They lacked the education and social skills necessary to blend into the mainstream. One newspaper reporter recalled a conversation witha middle-aged buraku woman in the early 1980s (Kadooka 2004:65-66):
If you had come here 8 years ago, I probably wouldn't have served you tea. At the time, I still
couldn't read. When people came from outside the buraku, I just moped around. I'd bethinking to myself, should I serve tea? Should I serve a dessert? But then I'd wonder, what dothese folks usually drink? What do they usually eat? I was so scared that I just hid in the house.
If I could, I'd like to move into town and live there. But you know, it's just too scary. The
people in town are educated. And I don't know what to talk to them about. I really can't leavethis village.

3. Buraku Location
To receive subsidies under the program, a burakumin community needed to registerwith the government. Not all did. The government's 1936 burakumin census

12

Kadooka (2012:38, 69); Ichinomiya and Group K21 (2012:126); Mori (2009:78). In 1969, $1.00 equaled
approximately 360 yen. By 2002 it equaled about 120 yen.
5

' Kadooka (2012:38, 69, 96); lchinomiya and Group K21 (2012:25, 126); Mori (2009:78).

Outcaste Politics and Organized Crime in Japan

197(Chuo yuwa 1936) counted 999,700 outcastes in 5,367 communities (we discuss the reliability of the census in our data section). By 1993, the government had registered 4,603
communities (Kadooka 2005:30-36; Naikaku 1995), 85 percent of the 1936 total.
Most burakumin communities are small. Of the neighborhoods reported in 1936,
2,067 (38.5 percent) had 10 or fewer households. Of the eight prefectures where noburakumin neighborhood had chosen to take the SMA funds as of 1993, three had noburakumin neighborhoods at all in 1936, according to the census. The other five prefectures did have 309 communities in 1936, but they were small: 246 of them (79.6 percent) had 10 or fewer households.
The neighborhoods are not randomly distributed. Table 1 shows the distribution
by prefecture. Using standard Japanese practice, we group the prefectures by regionand order them roughly from the northeast to the southwest. In Figure 1, we illustrate
this distribution on a map ofJapan. The darkest areas are the prefectures with the highest density of burakumin (we use the "Burakumin" variable described later). The seven
prefectures other than Tokyo without designated buraku in 1993 were from the northeast or the Japan Sea coast. The burakumin live mainly in central-western Japan: around
Osaka, Kyoto, and Kobe, in prefectures facing the Inland Sea, and in northern Kyushu.
The buraku in Osaka and Kyoto are massive. In 1936, Kyoto, Osaka, Hyogo, Nara,
Mie, Wakayama, and Hiroshima had 1,401 burakumin districts. Only 159 of these(11.3 percent) had 10 or fewer households. The three largest districts in 1936 Kyoto
had 653, 955, and 1,815 households. The three largest in Osaka had 881, 1,017, and2,683. The 2,683-household district had a burakumin population of 17,435. In 1936,
only seven other prefectures had a total burakumin population as large as this single
district in Osaka (Chuo yuwa 1936).
4. Identifying Burakumin
American observers puzzle over how anyone could identify a burakumin. Subtle culturaldifferences do exist (Tomotsune 2012:Ch. 4). Within Buddhism, the burakumin more
often align themselves with the Jodo shin denomination (Kadooka 2005:65-70; Wagatsuma
1967:89b). Within Shinto, they more often worship at Shirayama shrines (Maeda 2013).
They more often work in the beef industry (Pharr 1990:79). Via the connection with tanning, they tended to manufacture the traditional Japanese drum. They sang distinctive ballads and songs. Some of the poorer burakumin spoke a slightly idiosyncratic dialect(Sasaki & De Vos 1967:135; Donaghue 1967:149). Beyond that, differences were minor.
To identify burakumin precisely ("precisely" in the minds of the discriminator, notnecessarily in the minds of the target), an investigator needed to check whether someone
had a "new commoner" ancestor in the 1870s registry. The Diet ended public access to
the registries in the 1970s, however, to check discrimination. Media continue to reportoccasional cases of people who illegally check another person's registry. Legally, however,
only family members and a few specified others may examine someone's registry entry.14
4

Tomonaga (2015:27-28); Kadooka (2016:15); Koseki ho [Family Registry Act], Law No. 224 of 1947, Secs. 10, 10-2.

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Ramseyer and Rasmusen

Table 1:The Geographical Distribution of Burakumin

A. Prefectural Distribution of Burakumin, 1936
Prefecture

Bunakumin Households

Northeast and Central
Hokkaido
Aomorilivate

0
0
0

0
0
0

0

0

16
0
173

105
0
998

Miyagi
Akita
Yamagata
Fukushima

Burakumin Population

Ibaragi

877

5,329

Tochigi

2,581

15,863

Gunma

4,870

30,005

Saitama

5,402

32,875

Chiba
Tokyo

559
1,378

3,533
7,248

Kanagawa

933

5,400

Niigata

787

4,363

ToyamaIshikawa
Fukui
Yamanashi
NaganoGifu
Shizuoka

1,601
563
559
341
3,956
910
2,655

8,132
2,671
2,892
1,818
24,036
4,457
16,132

Aichi

2,732

13,593

Mie
Shiga
Kyoto

8,303
5,862
9,893

41,92628,287
47,692

Osaka

19,565

104,375

Hyogo

24,043

128,963

Nara

7,399

37,444

Wakayama

9,685

48,6203,835

21,999Kansai

Chugoku
Tottori

Shimane

1,727

7,796

Okayama
Hiroshima
Yamaguchi
Shikoku
Tokushima
KagawaEhime
Kochi
KyushuFukuoka

9,772
9,022
4,484

48,43047,68521,751

4,926
1,701
9,783
7,206

25,578
7,384
51,97037,70915,774

71,913

Saga

454

2,366

Nagasaki

648

3,189

Outcaste Politics and Organized Crime in japan
Table 1

199

Continued

A. PrefecturalDistribution of Burakumin, 1936
Prefecture
Kumamoto
Oita
MiyazakiKagoshima
Okinawa

Burakumin Households

Burakumin Population

2,690
1,770
211
1,908
0

14,612
9,559
1,055
9,934
0

B. Cities (2015 Boundaries) with the Most Burakumin in 1936
1936 Burakumin Population Vaiable "Burakumin"

City

Prefecture

Osaka
Kobe

Osaka
Hyogo

60,88235,701

229.9
261.1

Kyoto
Fukuoka
Wakayama
Hiroshima
HimejiTsu
Matsuyama
Kitakyushu

Kyoto
Fukuoka
Wakayama
Hiroshima
Hyogo
Mie
Ehime
Fukuoka

24,391
18,225
15,93013,356
12,65012,63912,54911,220

164.8
167.4
397.5
134.5
255.6
476.1
283.8
105.3

SouRcrs: See text.

With the registries off-limits, an investigator had to look to where the target or his
5
A father wanting to check his prospective son- or daughter-in-law's
parents live.
background could do it himself or he could hire an experienced detective agency(koshinsho). An employer might even keep a detective agency on retainer to check the
backgrounds of job applicants (Tominaga 2015:57). Detectives cannot do this openly
everywhere. Osaka banned this detective service in 1985 and Kumamoto, Fukuoka,
Kagawa, and Tokushima soon followed (Kadooka 2005:43-44; Tominaga 2015:55). In
any case, the service is not cheap. To one reporter, a detective quoted a price of
500,000 yen (about $5,000) for a background check (Tominaga 2015:36).
When the government closed the family registries in the 1970s, it set in motion
two cross-cutting phenomena. On the one hand, the government made it easier for an
enterprising burakumin to leave the buraku and slip into the Japanese mainstream. On
the other hand, it increased the odds that non-burakumin living in buraku would facediscrimination. Recall that fewer than half a buraku's residents are themselves outcastes.
So long as a would-be discriminator could check family registries, he could distinguishthe burakumin from the non-burakumin. After the closing of the registries, he had little
choice but to use residence and parental residence as proxies for burakumin status.

lfo

some extent this happened before as well, of course. See De Vos and Wagatsuma (1967b:118); De Vos andWagatsuma (1967c:246).

200

Ramseyer and Rasmusen

Figure 1: Geographical density of burakumin.

-

to"

NOTEs: The figure shows the density of burakumin (using the Burakutnin variable described in Section V of thetext) within Japan. The darkest areas (Osaka, Hyogo, Wakayama, Ehime, and Fukuoka) are the prefectures withthe highest density.

News reports and surveys confirm this second effect. One journalist asked a detective how he decided whether someone was a burakumin. They are burakumin "if theirparents were burakumin," he replied, "or if they came from a buraku." After all, "ifthey're currently living in a buraku, then they're burakumin" (Kadooka 2005:50;
2016:50). A 2005 Osaka survey asked the same question. Of the respondents, 50.3 percent replied that they looked at a person's address, 38.3 percent that they looked at theperson's recorded home (i.e., registry) address, and others looked at the address of aperson's parents or grandparents (Tominaga 2015:35).

5. Modern Scholarship
The most thorough and balanced English-language study of the buraku remains the1967 ethnographic classic by Hiroshi Wagatsuma, son of an eminent University of Tokyo
Civil Code Professor, and George De Vos (De Vos & Wagatsuma 1967a). On the eve ofthe targeted subsidy program, Wagatsuma, De Vos, and several collaborators compiled
careful and wide-ranging studies of a variety of urban and rural, stable and transitional
buraku.
Scholars since Wagatsuma-De Dovos tend to stress the variation in the definitionof a burakumin, both within the general public and among self-identified burakumin.
An investigator might ask whether a family has lived in a buraku for multiple

Outcaste Politics and Organized Crime in Japan201

generations. A resident of a buraku might ask whether a family's ancestors included
people discriminated against in the late-19th century-a definition that more often
tracks the 1870s registry. Yet even the registry-identified burakumin included more thanbutchers, tanners, and undertakers. In some areas of the country, they included those
who had committed a range of serious crimes. In others, they included itinerant
peddlers and entertainers. The scope varied from community to community.
These differences reflect the enormous geographical diversity of 19th-century
Japan. These were the years before radio and railroads, before the modern communication and transportation revolution that for better or worse has erased so much of theearlier variation. In those premodern years, communities differed massively along awide range of dimensions, not just today's quaint regional foods. Among the buraku,
the variations reflected the differences among the overarching mainstream communities. They also reflected differences in the types of families banished to outcaste status.
Modern ethnographers explore this contested nature to burakumin status in great
detail. Anthropologist Joseph Hankins (2014) worked for months in a burakumintanning factory, and interned for many more with the BLL's human rights wing. He
studied at length and with enormous care the ways burakumin workers identified
themselves, the way others identified them, and the way the BLL sought to integrate theburakumin cause into the international human rights movement. He examined inparticular the League's efforts to shiftJapan to a more "multicultural" vision.
Sociologist Kiyoteru Tsutsui (forthcoming) studied the relations between the BLL's
international human rights work and its self-identity. Work for "global human rights" canhave "constitutive and transformative impact" on "local social movements," wrote Tsutsui.
In the case of the burakumin, "global human rights" brought a "transformative impact"that ultimately would "constitute and reconstitute" their social movement.
Christopher Bondy (2015:3) explored buraku self-identity as well. He explainedthat the BLL "encourages burakumin pride and is determined to challenge discrimination wherever and whenever it is found." He discussed how mainstream news outlets
often avoided reporting on burakumin, and concluded (2015:6) that the "media areagents that silence public exposure to buraku issues."
Alastair McLauchlan (2003) interviewed 21 burakumin selected for him by the
BLL. After detailing their stories, he (2003:113) concluded that the "BLL is clearly thechampion of the residents of Buraku [X]. This very powerful organisation has unquestionably worked tirelessly to improve the circumstances of buraku residents ....
Jeffrey Bayliss (2013:1) took a more historical approach. He told of "the exploitation, prejudice, and marginalization that [burakumin] have suffered," and then turnedto the BLL's response. League members engage in "struggles to combat [their]
treatment." When they "denounce" discriminators (Bayliss 2013:2 n2), they do so toincorporate policies that will "work for both the buraku communities and the wider
political aims of the movement."
Ian Neary (2010) adopted a similarly historical approach in his biography of theearly BLL leader, Jiichiro Matsumoto. He (2010:1) took a largely positive tone:
Matsumoto "campaigned against the prejudice and discrimination that he and his fellow
Burakumin encountered in their daily lives."

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Ramseyer and Rasmusen

Frank Upham (1980, 1984) focused on the subsidy program itself, specifically its
first decade. He described (1980:204) the program as "affirmative action," and the"denunciation" sessions as "an active, participatory, and personal form of justice." The
League's predecessor "Suiheisha," he added (1984:187), was "strongly influenced by
Marxist and Christian philosophy."
We do not contest the multidimensional approaches taken in these studies nor
dismiss the humanitarian instincts of many BLL leaders. Rather than explore these questions, however, we focus on externals. In 1969, the Japanese government began distributing massive funds to burakumin communities. We take two distinct rosters of thosecommunities-the government's burakumin census of 1936, and the location of theburakumin branch offices. We then explore the effect of program termination on outmigration patterns and land prices.
B. The Criminal Syndicates

As of 2014, Japanese police counted 21 organized crime syndicates, the largest constituting federations of smaller units. The three largest account for over 70 percent of themembers and affiliates. The very largest was for decades the infamous Yamaguchi-gumi.
Until it split in 2015, police records indicate that it controlled over 40 percent of total
mob manpower (Keisatsu hakusho 2013:Fig. 3-13; 2015:2-3; Boryokujosei 2009:6).
Mob members were involved in some crimes more than others. Police arrested
22,000 members or affiliates in 2014, including 5,000 on amphetamine-related crimes(55 percent of all amphetamine arrests). Of the 5,200 people they arrested for extortion(kyohaku and kyokatsu) in that year, 1,700 came from the mob (Keisatsu hakusho
2015:4, App. Tabs. 1, 2-4).
Milhaupt and West (2000; see Hill 2003) identify several ways in which the mob
actually helps unwind dysfunctional government policy. Japanese tenant protection law
stops developers from evicting tenants, for example, and the mob helps persuadetenants to leave. Bankruptcy law introduces inefficiencies that the mob can help with.
That the mob sometimes remedies poor policy, however, should not distract from theviolent and predatory nature of most of what it does.
C. The Ties Between the Two Groups

1. The Buraku and the Mob
During the period of the targeted subsidies, the crime syndicates constituted a prominent part of the buraku. 16 Journalist Nobuhiko Kadooka (2012:28), himself from a
Hyogo burakumin community and the most perceptive and balanced writer in the field,'c'This effect seems almost entirely missed in the English-language literature on the burakumin and on the BLL.
See, e.g., Tsutsui (forthcoming); Hankins (2014); Bayliss (2013); Bondy (2015); McLaughlin (2003); Neary(2010); Upham (1980, 1984).

Outcaste Politics and Organized Crime in Japan203

notes the overlap:1 7 "The great majority of the minority groups earn an honest living,but most men in the organized crime syndicates are indeed members of minorities likethe Koreans or the burakumin."
Incendiary as Kadooka's statement may seem, members of the burakumin community, the syndicates, and the police consistently report that burakumin men comprise alarge fraction of the syndicates. A senior member of the Fukuoka-based Kudokai (as of2017, the most violent of the Japanese syndicates) noted in a documentary that 70 percent of the group's members were either burakumin or Koreans. 8 Kadooka himself
cites the don of the Kyoto-based Aizu-kotetsu-kai mob for the estimate that half its 1,300
members were from the buraku as of 1996 (Kadooka 2005:82-83; 2009:115). Burakuminpoet Yasutaro Uematsu (1977:166-67) noted that 70 percent of Yamaguchi-gumi wereburakumin. Burakumin journalist Manabu Miyazaki (Miyazaki & Otani (2000:162) wrotethat 90 percent of the mob were "minorities" (burakumin and Koreans).19 The police
confirm these observations. In 1986, two American journalists reported that the police
told them that 70 percent of the Yamaguchi-gumi came from the burakumin.2 0 In 2006,
a former official of the Public Security Intelligence Bureau gave the Foreign Correspondents' Club a figure of 60 percent.2 1
An especially unfortunate illustration of the ties between the burakumin and themob comes from a small town in northern Kyushu. According to the BLL (Noguchi
1997:31), this town has the second-highest concentration of burakumin in the country:
61 percent of its residents live in a buraku. People from elsewhere in Japan call it "gangtown." On Internet sites, they warn people to stay away. In 1986, someone shot the
mayor in his office. In 2002, someone shot the chairman of the city council. In 2003,
the police arrested the chairman on weapons charges. Later the same year they arrested
his replacement for involvement in a car-theft ring. In 2005, the mayor found his office
firebombed.

7' Although often critical of the BLL, Kadooka remains part of the burakumin intellectual leadership. He apparently retains enough goodwill within the BLL itself to be invited to contribute to BLL symposia; see Kadooka(2004).
See http://blog.ivedoorjp/takeru25-6911/archives/2057059.html.
"Rankin (2012) describes Miyazaki as someone who "knows the situation well," but apparently misses Miyazaki's
statement that the mob is composed overwhelmingly of "minorities."
20Kaplan and Dubro (1986:145). The Japanese Wikipedia entry for the two authors notes that the discussion
was
excised from the Japanese translation, presumably because the publisher feared BLL attacks.
'Lectureby Mitsuhiro

Suganuma. In

2014, the lecture was availableat:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?-

v=wNAVnjlR2g. It has since been taken down, nominally over "copyright" concerns, though it was still available
elsewhere on YouTube as of 2016. The statement comes from a senior member of the Yamaguchi-gumi. Rankin(2012) dismisses Suganuma's account as "distasteful insinuation," but apparently (given his praise of Miyazaki innote 20, supra) misses Miyazaki's statement about the buraku domination of the mob.
22

See, e.g., Fukuoka no oogun (2005); Boryokudan no machi (2011); Nottorareta machi (2015).

204

Ramseyer and Rasmusen

The most troubling aspect of the overlap between the burakumin and thecriminal syndicates, so inflammatory that academic accounts never mention it, lies in
the fraction of burakumin men who chose to join the mob. The size of that fraction
during the years of the targeted subsidies discloses an enormous diversion of young
talent, a diversion from life in the legal sector into fundamentally criminal behavior. To
calculate the lower bound of the fraction, suppose the burakumin comprised only half
the mob and that the crime syndicates recruited randomly from the total burakumin
population of 1.8 million. When the mob was at its height in the late 1980s, police
reported that 23,000 men in their 20s and 27,000 men in their 30s were part of one of
the gangs (Keisatsu hakusho 1989). If the age composition of the burakumin tracked
the general population, 2 3 9.4 percent of the burakumin men in their 20s were part ofthe mob. Of those in their 30s, 11.1 percent were.
That is the lower bound. To calculate the upper bound, suppose that 70 percentof the mob came from the burakumin. Suppose further that the mob did not recruit its
members from the 700,000 burakumin who had faded into the general population,
instead recruiting only from the 1.1 million living in the communities that chose to takethe subsidies. By the same calculation, 21.4 percent of the 20-29-year-old burakumin
men in these designated communities would have been part of the mob, and 25.2 percent of men in their 30s. As moderate burakumin journalist Kadooka (2012:20) put it,"for a long time, the buraku was the hotbed of the mob."
The resulting stigma was self-reinforcing. If only a small proportion of a groupchooses to engage in antisocial behavior (such as joining a gang), someone caught
engaging in the behavior is revealing an unusual antisocial tendency. If a large proportion is antisocial, on the other hand, the entire group is stigmatized, since it becomes
rational for an outsider to suspect that even if someone was not caught, he was guilty
anyway. In turn, this discrimination reduces the value of a clean record versus a stained
one: someone in the group faces suspicion even if he behaves impeccably (Rasmusen
1996). If enough people from a given neighborhood engage in crime, all will be suspect, which in turn reduces the reputation loss to any one person whose crime surfaces.
The self-reinforcing feedback continues because it becomes rational for outsiders to besuspicious of everyone in the neighborhood.

2. The BLL
The BLL traces its origins to the Suiheisha, a militant prewar buraku organization led
byJiichiro Matsumoto. Matsumoto ran a profitable construction empire in Fukuoka. He
kept a solid grip on the market for railroad construction by cultivating a reputation as a
man rivals challenged at their peril. At least in part, this reputation was based on
violence. When a rival firm threatened his profitability, his workers waylaid the firm's
2In fact, the 1993 government survey indicated that the burakumin were older than the general population.
Of
the burakumin living in the designated districts, 15.5 percent were 65 or older. Of the general Japanese popula-tion, 13.5 percent were 65 or older. See Naikaku (1995).

Outcaste Politics and Organized Cime in Japan205

owner and beat him to death (Ichinomiya & Group K21 2012:22-24, 54-58; Tottori
Loop & Mishima 2010; Neary 2010).
Violence waxed and waned at the Suiheisha, and the episodes of brutality continued at its successor, the BLL. The disputes split burakumin communities. Elite burakumin families formed the core of the groups working to improve community welfare(Donaghue 1967:150-51). During the 1960s, they were the burakumin most troubled by
the League's violent tactics (Cornell 1967:160, 175). A "common complaint" in the buraku, noted John Cornell (1967:174), was that the BLL was "too much given to violence."
Burakumin leaders worried "that the very aggressiveness of the [BLL] tends to heighten
discrimination by publicizing and reviving hostility."
The League leaders themselves brought a very wide variety of motives. Kadooka(2009:313) recounts a conversation with a now-senior BLL official who was recalling thetime he applied to join a BLL branch office in the 1980s. He had asked a BLL leader,
who responded:"You. We'll let you in the branch. What are your demands?""What do you mean, 'demands'?" asked the applicant.
"Housing, job, taxes." The BLL leader continued. "Could be lots of things, right?""I have a house," the applicant replied, "and I have a job.""Then why do you want to join the branch?""Because I want to work for liberation.""Huh? Now?" the leader quizzically replied.
The story illustrates the two distinct groups in the subsidy-era BLL. The idealists
and intellectuals collected statistics, wrote books, and explained the League's work tovisiting foreign scholars. The mob-affiliated entrepreneurs manipulated the subsidy programs for private gain. "There was a time," moderate burakumin journalist Kadooka(2012:53-54) recalled, "when the historic anti-discrimination group [i.e., the BLL] hadcurrent or former members of the mob holding important positions." After all, he
continued:
It wasn't unusual for BLL members to be current or former members [of the mob.] Somepeople marched into battle under the crown of thorns [i.e., the BLL symbol] out of anger
against the discrimination. Others marched with plans to make their fortune through the[SMA-funded] buraku projects.

3. The Violence
The violent reputation of the modern BLL dates in part from its brutal break with theJapan Communist Party (JCP). Coincident with the enactment of the SMA in 1969, the
BLL split with the party. The League had long allied itself with both the Japan Socialist
Party and the JCP, but in the late 1960s it split decisively with the Communists. Western
scholars have generally accepted its claim that it split for ideological reasons. As Upham(1980) put it, the JCP argued that "[b]uraku liberation can only be completely achieved
through a transformation of Japanese society that will liberate all oppressed Japanese."

206

Ramseyer and Rasmusen

By contrast, the BLL claimed that "discrimination is pervasive in Japanese society andpresent among members of the working class and the Communist Party itself."2
The Communists themselves attributed the conflict to an internecine JCP dispute.
As the People's Republic of China broke with the Soviet Union in the 1960s over control of the international communist movement, so did the JCP. One faction stayed loyal
to and took money from the Soviet Union, but the winning faction sided with China.
The BLL leaders had allied themselveswith the Soviet faction,and now foundthemselves purged from the party along with the rest of the Soviet bloc. They retaliatedby expelling JCP members from the League.2 5
But the BLL and the JCP had more to fight about than ideology or the SovietChina split. The money from the SMA subsidies was at stake. In rejecting JCP orthodoxy,
the BLL leaders also barred rival claimants from access to the subsidies. To enforce thatbar, they organized a several-hundred strong brigade. To run the brigade, they named
two men with dual roles: as BLL branch office head and as member of the mob.
The BLL hit the JCP loyalists hard. They euphemistically called their tactics"denunciation sessions" (kyudan). Best-known in the West were the April 1969 attacks on
JCP-affiliated teachers in the Osaka neighborhood of Yata. A JCP middle-school teacher
had complained of extra work tied to buraku-related tasks. The BLL declared him a"discriminator" (sabetsusha), and dragged him and other JCP teachers to a local commu27
nity hall. There, they harangued them in front of 200 burakumin for over 12 hours.
Against JCP teachers in Yoka, the BLL was more violent still. The JCP reported
brutal attacks, but though the JCP's journalistic accuracy is suspect, 2 8 Stanford anthropologist Thomas Rohlen (1976:685-86) was in the area doing fieldwork, and he reports:
Inside the school the beatings continued relentlessly. . . One teacher was burned with alighted cigarette, another was picked up by his hands and legs and dropped on the floor
repeatedly. . . The violence lasted into the night .... Of the fifty-two teachers that left the24

See also Neary (1997:67).

For a detailed discussion of "the Marxist position" on the burakumin, see Ruyle(1979).
51chinomiya and Group K21
2007010426 01 0.html.
2

6(2013:19, 263, 282); see also http://www.jcp.orjp/akahata/aik4/2007-01-04/

Mori (2009:33); Kadooka (2009:268-69; 2012:52); Ichinomiya and Group K21 (2013:96-97).

27

SeeJapan v. [Parties omitted], 782 Hanreijiho 22 (Osaka D. CL June 3, 1975) (acquitting BLL leaders of illegal
arrest), rev'd, 996 Hanrei jiho 34 (Osaka High Ct. Mar. 10, 1981); Kinoshita v. Osaka, 693 Hanrei jiho 111(Osaka D. CL Oct. 30, 1979) (awarding denounced teachers damages against Osaka City); translations by Frank

Upham of all three opinions available in Milhaupt et al. (2012).
28The events were not well-reported in the news media. Years later, burakumin writer Uehara (2014:Ch. 3) traveled to Yoka to speak to those involved in the event. He tends to corroborate the reports of extensive violence.
For judicial opinions relating to the incident, see Japan v. Maruo, 523 Hanrei taimuzu 109 (Kobe D. CL Dec. 14,

1983) (convicting BLL leaders of false imprisonment), affd, 1309 Hanrei jiho 43 (Osaka High Ct. Mar. 29,
1988), affd (Sup. CL Nov. 28, 1990); [No names given], 1350 Hanrei jiho 107 (Kobe D. CL Mar. 28, 1990);
Morimoto v. [No name given], 1273 Hanrei jiho 38 (Kobe D. Ct. Sept. 28, 1987) , aff'd, 696 Hanrei taimuzu 100(Osaka High Ct. Feb. 15, 1989).

OutcastePolitics and Organized Crime in Japan

207

school that morning, twelve were listed with broken ribs, vertebrae or tibia. Some of them had
many broken bones. Thirteen, including the twelve just mentioned, required at least six weeks
of hospitalization. Five more were hospitalized for a month, 15 for from two to three weeks,and 15 more for over a week.

4. The "One-Window" Policy
BLL leaders sought exclusive control over the SMA-targeted subsidies. In their words,
they sought a "one-window" policy: all funds would arrive through "one window," and it
would be a window they controlled.
BLL leaders first imposed the one-window policy on the city of Suita in Osaka prefecture. In June 1969, they demanded that the Suita government accept the policy.
When the city government balked, they sent 300 BLL members. For three days, report
BLL critics (we do not have independent confirmation of the claim), they surrounded
the mayor's house. They banged drums through the night. They cut his gas, water, andtelephone lines. They scaled his wall and climbed onto his grounds. Eventually, themayor acquiesced (Nakahara 1988:128-29; Ichinomiya & Group K21 2013:270).
The BLL moved from city to city. As necessary-again, according to its critics-it
repeated the tactics. When it faced the Habikino city government (in Osaka prefecture),for example, BLL members occupied city hall for 122 hours, and confined the mayor
for 22 (Nakahara 1988:128-29; Ichinomiya & Group K21 2013:96-97, 270). They did
not obtain control everywhere, and when challenged they could lose in court.29 In time,
most (not all) cities dismantled the one-window policies, but the BLL continued topush for the control.
Given the early one-window policy, if a community wanted a share of the SMA
subsidies, it needed a BLL branch office. Predictably enough, given the money involved,
formerly reluctant burakumin communities across the country rushed to establish
branches. In time, BLL membership soared past 200,000 (Kadooka 2012:36, 65, 304;
Kobayashi 2015:12).
5. Predictable Consequences
a. Exogamy. Several consequences followed from the subsidy-driven association withorganized crime and violence. Obviously, the association contributed to the continued
reluctance of many mainstream Japanese to let their children marry into the group.
Most modern Japanese evaluate potential sons- and daughters-in-law as individuals. They
do not care whether someone's grandfather worked as a butcher. They do care,however, if their child marries into a family with ties to organized crime.
b. Employment. For similar reasons, some mainstream employers continued to avoid
hiring applicants from the community. Employers want employees who are honest, work

"E.g., Maeda v. Nishiwaki shi, 887 Hanrei jiho 66 (Kobe D. Ct. Dec. 19, 1977); Fukuoka shi v. Matsuoka, 870
Hanreijiho 61 (Fukuoka High Ct. Sept. 13, 1977); see generally Upham (1980:54-62).

208

Ramseyer and Rasmusen

hard, and provide give and take as necessary to further the firm's goals. Many (perhapsmost) firms will evaluate potential applicants as individuals. Others will see a background in a community known for extortion and mob violence as a risk they cannot
afford.
When the BLL decided to declare a firm "discriminatory" it threatened"denunciation" sessions unless the firm showed good faith. The easiest way to show
good faith was with money. In 1975, the BLL attacked firms that bought books identifying the location of traditional burakumin communities. According to the League's most
severe critics, it then formed a political arm that it funded through "contributions" fromthe firms it had just attacked. The "donations" ranged from 100,000 yen from the Rikkar
sewing machine firm, to 3 million yen from Mitsubishi Real Estate (Terazono et al.
2004:298-99).
According to its critics, the practice generalized. When the league accused an
Osaka firm of "discrimination," reports one such critic, the firm could avoid the"denunciation" sessions by joining a "study group." Study groups were not free. Asserted
one BLL critic, the League charged a sliding scale-from 190,000 yen per year for firms
with 101-500 employees, to 230,000 yen per year for those with 3,001 employees ormore (Tottori Loop 2011:60).
c. Silence. Unsurprisingly, mainstream journalists hesitate to say anything at all about thecommunity. The BLL has routinely declared media statements "discriminatory" andthreatened denunciation. Two of the numerous episodes will illustrate. In 1981, the University of Tokyo Press published a Japanese translation of a book by Margaret Mead. In
it, she used the traditional but derogatory and by then politically incorrect term for theoutcastes. The press withdrew the book, but the BLL continued its pressure anyway(Kobayashi 2015:74-75). In 1982, a professor in a University of Tokyo workshop asserted
that "there's no buraku problem in eastern Japan." "It's just an issue for western Japan,"he explained, and "even there, it's a financial dispute between the BLL and the JCP
over the burakumin budget [the SMA subsidies]." For these observations, the BLL subjected the professor to "denunciation" (Kobayashi 2015:76-77). With their barely disguised threats of violence, these "denunciations" made the entire field of burakumin
scholarship high risk. Most scholars responded by staying away.

III.

THE CRACKDOWN

A. Legislation

As the government moved toward ending the subsidies, it also began to restructure thelaw to facilitate prosecution. In 1991, it authorized prefectural governments to designate
the mobs as organized crime syndicates, basing the designations on factors such as thenumber of members with criminal records."o Once so designated, police could move

soBoryoku dan in ni yoru futo na koi no boshi ni kansuru horitsu [Law Relating to the Prevention of Improper

Activity by Members of Organized Crime Syndicates], Law No. 77 of 1991; see generally Hill (2003).

Outcaste Politics and Organized Crime in Japan

209

against the mobs with fewer constraints. In 2011, the statute was amended to allow
additional steps against syndicates designated as especially dangerous (Kudo kai 2013;
Ichinomiya & Group K21 2016:2). Other legislation in 2000 and 2007 facilitated police
investigations of financial fraud and money laundering (Rankin 2012).
By 2010-2011, prefectural governments were passing their own anti-mob ordinances.I They typically left the wording ambiguous, but the effect was to pressure
legitimate companies to shun a wide variety of otherwise routine business with mob
members. Usually, they banned local governments from contracting with mob entities.
They encouraged firms to use a boilerplate contract clause that let them cancel a contract if a counterparty had mob connections and they banned firms from investing in
mob affiliates or otherwise providing them with capital.
Cumulatively, the statutes and ordinances put substantial pressure on the mob.
Rankin (2012) reported "campaigns to prevent yakuza from participating in public auctions, to stop them from receiving welfare benefits, and to expel them from public housing projects." The Fukuoka police "cautioned a printing firm that had made businesscards for a yakuza boss" (Rankin 2012). And an Osaka court "sentenced a yakuza boss
to ten months in jail for offering financial aid to the family of an incarcerated subordinate, an act of charity made unlawful" by the recent legal changes (Rankin 2012).
Around 2000, police activity against the mob picked up pace. Consider just thearrests for extortion or blackmail.3 2 Police reported that 44 percent of blackmail arrests
in 2012 involved mob affiliates, and 29 percent of extortion arrests (Homu sho, Hanzai
2013:Tab. 4-2-2-2). Arrest numbers are not available at the municipality-level, but
Table 2 shows arrests nationally and in the prefectures having large burakumin
populations.
Extortion levels were extremely high in the 1970s and 1980s, for reasons we
explain below. From those highs, the nationwide number of extortion prosecutions
dropped steadily to 37,110 in 1996. The numbers dropped similarly in the three principal burakumin prefectures. From 1999 to 2000, however, the number of prosecutions
shot up 33 percent nationally. In Osaka, it jumped 25 percent, in Hyogo (home to the
Yamaguchi-gumi)

39 percent, and in Fukuoka (home to hyper-violent Kudokai) 9

percent.
B. The Targets
As the new millennium opened, the government sent in the police. For decades, policeand prosecutors had left the BLL leadership largely alone. In 2004, however, they

S'E.g., Tokyo to boryokudan haijo jorei [Tokyo Ordinance for the Exclusion of Organized Crime Syndicates],
Jorei No. 54, Mar. 18, 2011; Aomori ken boryoku dan haijo jorei [Aomori Prefecture Ordinance for the Exclusion of Organized Crime Syndicates], Jorei 9 of Mar. 25, 2011; Iwate ken boryoku dan haijo jorei [Iwate Prefecture Ordinance for the Exclusion of Organized Crime Syndicates], Jorei 35 of Mar. 16, 2011; see generally

Boryokudan (2012).
number of "sobo" crimes, per capita: extortion, blackmail, assembly with a dangerous weapon, assault, andbattery. Data from Homusho (various years), and available for download from from the estat database.
32The

210

Ramseyer and Rasmusen

Table 2:

Japan
Osaka
Hyogo
Fukuoka

Japan
Osaka
Hyogo
Fukuoka

Arrests for Blackmail and Extortion
1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

1996

1997

1998

86,159
4,965
4,523
5,167

68,154
7,065
3,350
3,673

59,666
5,176
2,869
3,626

42,042
4,086
2,065
3,013

37,370
3,904
1,517
2,861

37,110
3,540
1,768
2,774

40,432
3,752
1,862
2,808

39,755
3,624
1,809
2,713

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2010

37,874
3,095
1,652
2,402

50,419
3,879
2,291
2,609

50,428
4,244
2,298
2,698

49,615
4,103
2,886
2,327

49,530
4,071
2,696
2,458

46,801
3,901
2,604
2,121

49,156
3,877
2,922
2,453

49,525
3,330
3,225
2,710

NOTES: The number of "sobo" crimes, per capita: extortion, blackmail, assembly with a dangerous weapon, assault,
and battery.
SOURCES: Keisatsu cho (various years).

arrested Mitsuru Asada and 10 other senior managers in the Hannan corporate groupfor defrauding the government of 5 billion yen. Asada had figured importantly in his
local BLL branch office and had hired into the Hannan group two brothers with prominent positions in the Yamaguchi-gumi syndicate. The district court sentenced Asada to33
seven years in prison. The High Court reduced the sentence, but affirmed.
In 2005, police arrested landscapers in the burakumin trade association for rigging the bidding on Osaka City contracts. They arrested city officials too, catching themoff-guard. "But we've been doing this for thirty years," one exclaimed. The court
convicted them anyway (Kadooka 2012:187; "Kaido" kei 2006).
In 2006, news broke about the Ashihara Hospital. The hospital had served theburakumin community in Osaka and sported the BLL insignia proudly on its walls. It
had also borrowed from the city 1.3 billion yen that it had not repaid. One nurse, her34
self a BLL member, complained:
The nurses and office workers are mostly local hires from the neighborhood. The hospital has
half again as many workers as a normal hospital. You'd think that'd make the work easier,right? Not a chance. Too many of them are just loafing off ... The office workers watch TV
during overtime. Some nurses can't even calculate how long they should run an IV. This stuff
has implications for lives.

In 2006, police turned to the former head of the BLL branch office in the Osaka
suburb of Yao. The man had simultaneously worked as consultant to the Yamaguchi-gumi.
Apparently, he had demanded benefits from city hall, and payoffs from firms thatwon public construction contracts. The police charged him with extortion and the court"[Unnamed parties], 1918 Hanrei jiho 126 (Osaka D.Ct. May 27, 2005); see Kadooka (2012:187); Ichinomiya
and Group K21 (2012:258-64); Ban (2017).
s"Kadooka (2009:271; 2012:188-89). See generally Tomotsune (2012:Ch. 3).

Outcaste Politics and Organized Crime in Japan

211&

sent him to prison. It sent him on a short sentence, and by 2014 he was again under arreston new fraud charges.3 5
The media also began to report on Kyoto City workers. From 1996 to 2001, policearrested 16 city workers on amphetamine charges-this in a country where voters expect(or at least hope for) immaculate lives of their government bureaucrats. Upon theirarrest, police discovered histories of mob membership, cocaine use, paint-thinner abuse,and violence. Most of these workers had worked in departments where Kyoto ran preferential burakumin hiring programs (Terazono et al. 2004:47). Over the course of
2003-2006, Kyoto would discipline 70 employees for offenses ranging from battery andtheft to absenteeism (Kadooka 2012:191). The bad news continued. From April 2006 to
July 2007, police arrested another 15 city officials, this time not just for amphetamines
but also battery, hit and run, and destroying an ATM with a golf club (Nakamura
Terazono 2007:4, 11-12).
By the end of 2006, the media reported that a BLL branch office head employed
by Nara City had reported for work just eight days over the last five and a half years.
The rest of the time, he had called in sick and collected full pay. The media gleefully
noted his white Porsche and the city's contracts with a construction firm owned by his
wife. The city duly fired him, and the police arrested him on extortion charges relating
to the construction work (Kadooka 2012:191; Narashi 2006).
C. Kunihiko Konishi36

The most headline-grabbing news involved BLL branch office head Kunihiko Konishi.
In 2006, police arrested the 72-year-old in his 30-something mistress's condominium. He
had become an enormously rich man. His banker estimated that over the course of hislife he had earned 10 billion yen (Kadooka 2012:101). He earned much of this fromloan sharking and SMA-related kickbacks, but police also suspected him of laundering
funds for the Yamaguchi-gumi. They tailed him for a year to identify the laundering(Mori 2015:190-228). In turn, this led to evidence of embezzlement, and they arrested
him on those charges in May 2006.
Born in 1933 into a burakumin community between Osaka and Kyoto, Konishi
dropped out after middle school. He spent multiple stints in prison for battery andextortion. He took up heroin. In due course he joined a branch of the Yamaguchigumi, 3 7 and in 1969, at the age of 35, he became head of the BLL branch office in the
Asuka neighborhood of Osaka.
Konishi then convinced the city to let him turn a nearby lot into a parking facility.
Nominally, he ran the lot through a neighborhood public service organization. In fact,
he ran it fraudulently from the start. He told the city it held 90 cars; it actually held 200
35

Kadooka (2012:190); Maruo (2006); Ichinomiya and Group K21 (2012:150-51).

36

See generally Kadooka (2012); Mori (2009); Ichinomiya and Group K21 (2012:64-147).

SKadooka (2012:26, 29, 41); Ichinomiya and Group K21 (2012:80); Mori (2015:123).

212

Ramseyer and Rasmusen

to 400. Accounts vary, but at least by one of them he told the city it generated 70 million yen when it actually earned 200 million. In 2004, the city reported parking lot revenues over the first 30 years of 1.8 billion. Konishi had actually collected 5.0 billion, andforwarded the money, at least initially, to his syndicate.
Konishi lived extravagantly. He owned a mansion in Nara, subletting his
government-subsidized burakumin apartment in Asuka. He housed a succession of mistresses in assorted condominiums. He spent his evenings in lavish nightclubs, runningbar tabs of 10 million yen per month (Kadooka 2012:124). He rode a chauffeured
Lincoln, and bought a Mercedes for his daughter (Ichinomiya & Group K21 2012:79,
83; Mori 2009:68). He entertained policemen at bars (Mori 2009:128-30). He maintained close enough ties to the top leadership of the Yamaguchi-gumi that when rivals
gunned down the reigning don, they hit him in the lobby of a condominium held in
Konishi's name (Kadooka 2012:108).
Perhaps it was the scale of his corruption, or perhaps it was his prominence within
the BLL, but the police made an example of Konishi. Prosecutors charged him withembezzling 130 million yen from the parking lot (Kadooka 2012:23). His earlier handler
at the Mitsubishi UFJ (formerly Sanwa) bank killed himself before the police could
move in. His current handler found himself arrested for aiding and abetting fraud(Mori 2009:18-19; Ichinomiya & Group K21 2012:68). The district court convicted
Konishi in 2007 and sentenced him to six years. He died later that year.

IV.

THE PATTERNS OF CORRUPTION

A. Introduction

Let us now take a closer look at how burakumin status could be made lucrative. During
the three decades of the targeted subsidies, the corruption in the burakumin community typically took one of five forms:
1. Government contracts for infrastructural construction;
2. Land sales to the government, primarily for infrastructure;
3. Tax fraud;
4. Accusations of "discrimination," after which a group would cancel denunciation
sessions if a firm paid enough money; and5. Control over the distribution of burakumin perquisites, including municipal
government jobs.
These five tactics did not all follow directly from the SMA-targeted subsidy
program. They followed indirectly, however, by a straightforward logic: the subsidies
kept large numbers of burakumin men in the organized crime syndicates; the syndicatesraised the level of fear among mainstream Japanese; and that fear increased the money

3Kadooka (2012:22, 60-63); Mori (2009:22); Ichinomiya and Group K21 (2012:71-76).

Outcaste Politics and Organized Crime in Japan

213

some burakumin could extract from private firms or the government. Let us take eachof the five in turn.
B. Construction Contracts
Over the course of the SMA's targeted subsidies, Japanese governments lavished 15 trillion on burakumin neighborhoods, much of it on construction. In just the single yearof 1973, Osaka prefecture spent 66 billion yen, 75.9 percent on construction (Nakahara

1988:132).
Because of the BLL's "one-window policy," in most though not all areas the BLL
could assign the construction contracts to firms that joined its Buraku Construction
Association (BCA; the Dowa kensetsu kyokai). These firms paid the BCA 0.7 percent of
the contract amount. One set of bitter BLL critics claims the practice earned the BCA 7
39billion yen over about three decades.
Nominally, only burakumin firms joined the BCA. In practice, mainstream firms
sometimes joined too. Profits on SMA-funded construction contracts were high enough,that is, that mainstream firms tried to become burakumin firms. To maintain appearances, the firm might name a prominent burakumin leader as its president, but allegedly abribe could sometimes also suffice (Mori 2009:180-83).
Some of the burakumin leaders who selected the winning bids apparently
demanded tribute beyond the 0.7 percent BCA fee. Take Konishi. A businessman who
handled the bidding for a mainstream construction firm explained (Mori 2009:78, 180):
If we were about to bid on an Osaka project, we usually visited Mr. Konishi first. After all, heran the bidding. So if it looked as though the city were about to put a project out for bids,
we'd visit him. We'd assemble a joint venture [with a BCA member firm], present it to him,
and win his approval:

Once the firm won the bid, it paid 3 to 5 percent of the contract to Konishi personally(Kadooka 2012:96).
Prominent burakumin could also divert subsidies to themselves through shellcompanies. To do so, they first formed a corporation. The corporation joined the BCA
and partnered with a mainstream construction firm (like the one that visited Konishi).
They bid on the government contract together, and on winning the bid the shell corpo0
ration took its cut and left the mainstream firm to do the work.
Critics say that some aggressive burakumin did not even limit SMA projects toburaku. We do not know whether the claims are exaggerated, but the critics complainthat sometimes aggressive burakumin claimed to find burakumin communities wheres9Nakahara (1988:132); Mori (2009:77, 180); Ichinomiya and Group K21 (2012:127; 2013:108-11, 268). Note thatMori (2009) is not a BLL critic. He is a mainstream journalist publishing through an eminently respectable publishing house.
4"Konishi himself owned the Noma komuten firm. It had very little equipment but won massive numbers of bids.

Over one five-year period, it captured over 2.1 billion yen's worth of city contracts (Ichinomiya & Group K21

2012:83-84, 125, 238-39; 2013:271-72).

214

Ramseyer and Rasmusennone had existed before. They would arrive at an unsuspecting city hall with a large
entourage and insist that city officials designate a given area a buraku. They would thendemand that the officials entertain bids for burakumin housing construction. If
residents in the targeted area complained, they accused those residents of prejudice(Nakahara 1988:28-44, 106-08; Ichinomiya & Group K21 2013:267-68).
Because the construction projects involved such vast resources, they generated
tensions within the criminal syndicates as well. The bloodiest period in the history ofJapanese organized crime was the mid-1980s, when war broke out between rival factionsof Yamaguchi-gumi. It was not a simple succession fight, explains burakumin writer
Manabu Miyazaki (Miyazaki & Otani 2000:73); it was a fight for control over the massive
revenue from the targeted subsidies.
C. Land Transactions

Well-connected burakumin could also sell the land for the construction projects to thegovernment at inflated prices. Critics report examples from a wide variety of locations.
When the government redeveloped Asuka, Konishi himself pocketed enormous gains(Kadooka 2012:86). He bought land low, reported his biographer Kadooka (also a burakumin), and resold it to the government high. For a fee, he also negotiated high-priced
sales of other people's land to the government.
One Osaka real estate agent observed (Kadooka 2012:85-86): "Once Konishi
became branch office head, I learned how to tell where a road was going to go in, andwhere housing would soon be built." He watched what Konishi bought, he told
Kadooka. "Konishi once acquired a plot of district land for 17 million," he recalled. "Hethen sold it to the government for 30 million."
Consider several transactions between the Kita-Kyushu city government and BLL
leaders in the 1970's. The mainstream Asahi newspaper (the paper of record for theJapanese intellectual class) initially broke the story, but it is not a story the BLL denies.
Indeed, the League even disciplined the individuals involved. Kadooka (2004:63-64)
candidly discusses (and criticizes) the corruption in a volume published by the BLL
itself. Table 3 show the pattern of land exchanges reported by the newspaper staff.
Table 3:

Land Purchases and Subsequent Sales to the City of Kita-Kyushu

Purchase by Seller

Transfer to City

Intervening Time

Price Multiple

9/24/1973

10/26/1973

1 mo.

1.7

9/28/1978

5/26/1979

7 mo.

1.8

12/17/1974

12/17/1974

02

2/17/1977
12/_/1977
7/2/1980
4/24/1980

5/12/1977
6/_/19782/23/1981
3/3/1981

3 mo.
6 mo.
8 mo.
10 mo.

3.5
3
2
3.2

11/14/1978

11/24/1978

10 days3

8/3/197812/13/1978

4 mo.

7.3

SOURCE: Asahi(1982:11).

Outcaste Politics and Organized Crime in Japan215

The first line of Table 3, for example, indicates that one burakumin bought landon September 24, 1973 and resold it to the city on October 26 for 1.7 times the amount
he paid. The BLL official who conducted the second of the nine transactions made a
290 million yen profit on it, and sold several other parcels to the city as well. All told,
he earned 1.3 billion yen from land he sold to the government (Kadooka 2004:63).

D. Tax Fraud"Over the course of the three SMA-subsidy decades, many burakumin firms demandedand successfully extracted-special tax privileges. In one of its official histories, the BLL
recounts with pride how it accomplished this feat (Buraku 1978:106-26). In December
1967, 40 members of the Osaka BLL and its new subsidiary organization, the Osaka
Buraku Business Federation (OBBF; Osaka fu dowa chiku kigyo rengo kai) marched
into the local office of the National Tax Administration (NTA). They accused the staffof "discriminatory" taxation, and vowed to fight them with (their word) "aggressive"
tactics (Buraku 1978:109). A burakumin had sold a piece of land, they explained, andhis auditor had refused to believe he could have sold it for so little. The 40 BLL and
OBBF members "denounced" the tax staff for five hours (Buraku 1978:109).
The OBBF entourage reappeared in the tax office the next month, the official history proudly continues, this time with 400 burakumin. "The national tax office hadrefused to learn the reality of the buraku and its discrimination," it explained. So they
pursued the tax agency staff for another five hours and scored (again, their words) "a42knock-out.'"

3. Returns ...

The tax office agreed to seven principles, which included:that are submitted through the OBBF and under its supervision shall be

accepted in full. Should there be a need to audit the content, the audit shall be conducted
through the OBBF with its cooperation.
4. Burakurnin business [dowajigyo; i.e., business related to SMA projects] shall not be taxed.
In effect, the local branch of the National Tax Office agreed to let the OBBF
distribute tax cuts as it pleased. "An NTA official explained that income of 10 million
yen would be reduced to 3 or 4 million," wrote one journalist (Kadooka 2012:92).
"Income of 20 million would be reduced to 5 or 6 million. In effect, two-thirds ofincome would be treated as tax-exempt."

41This account is available from a wide variety of sources. For relatively balanced versions, see Kadooka (2012:8892); Mori (2009:115-20). For the BLL's own account, see Buraku (1978:Ch. 9-2). For sources highly critical of
the BLL, see Hira (1991:53-74); Terazono et al. (2004:122-200); Ichinomiya and Group K21 (2013:33-44);
Nakahara (1988:146-52).
42

Buraku (1978:109). The agreement was apparently renewed in 1978. See Ichinomiya et al. (2004:34). Both the

BLL itself (Buraku 1978:111) and its critics (lchinomiya & Group K21 2013:34; Nakahara 1988:147) claim that
the NTA agreed to adopt the same approach nationally. That said, the courts have adamantly (and very plausibly)
denied that the national government would ever have agreed to such terms. E.g., Koku v. Sakamoto, 226 Zeishi

3337 (Osaka High Ct. June 15, 1995), afFd on other grounds, 226 Zeishi 3316 (Sup. Ct. Nov. 14, 1997) (appeal
brief quoting lower court).

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Eyeing the prospect of a two-thirds tax discount, firms fought for the privilege ofjoining the buraku. Again, BLL officials in positions of power made that possible.
According to one 1997 survey, 15 of the 52 Asuka OBBF firms had offices and owners
outside of Asuka (Kadooka 2012:92). Someone who knew Konishi well explained(Kadooka 2012:92):
It must have been sometime in the mid-1970s. I was asked by someone to give Mr. Konishi 6
million yen. It was in gratitude for letting him join the OBBF. ... You really were supposed to
be burakumin. But other people were members too. In their cases, they had to pay money.
What was true for Osaka and Konishi generalized: mainstream firms bribed
their way into the OBBF burakumin organization. Nationally, critics estimated thatabout one-fifth of OBBF members were not burakumin firms. They joined by paying
someone to introduce them to the organization. Once members, they paid the OBBF
for the qualified tax exemption-typically, a price of about 20 percent of the tax
avoided.
OBBF membership did not provide total tax immunity, especially since the courts
were not willing to enforce the policy if prosecutors were willing to take action. 4 4 There
were limits, and in 1989 the Osaka District Court declared that 37 billion yen was overthe limit. The Diet had not yet discontinued the SMA subsidy programs, and the prosecutors had not yet moved on Konishi. Nonetheless, in 1986 prosecutors filed charges
against Tokyo Pabuko (and related entities), the largest manufacturer of Japanese slot
machines, and against the advisor who helped file its tax returns.4 5 The firm had joined
the OBBF and underreported its income by 37 billion yen, 98.5 to 99.9 percent of itstrue income. To enable it to join, an OBBF leader had put his mother on the firm's
board. With its new burakumin status secured, the firm thought it could safely underreport its income. For the privilege, it paid the advisor 700 million yen. The advisor thentransferred 500 million to the OBBF, and kept 200 million as his personal fee.
The district court sentenced the advisor to two years and eight months in prison
and a 200 million yen fine.4 It was not pleased with how the Osaka tax office handled
OBBF returns: "The burakumin organization was used for tax evasion, and it cannot be
said that the response of the local tax office was unproblematic." On appeal, the3

4 See lchinomiya and Group K21 (2013:39, 43-44); Nakahara (1988:152); Hira (1991:64-66); Terazono et al.
(2004:122-36, 200).
WProsecutors could be particularly hard on burakunin groups that sponsored tax evasion in exchange for fees.
See Koku v. Sakamoto, 226 Zeishi 3337 (Osaka High Ct. June 15, 1995), aff'd on other grounds, 226 Zeishi 3316
(Sup. Ct. Nov. 14, 1997).
<The case was widely reported. Koku v. Nakatani, 197 Zeishi 2713, 1989 WLJPCA 07066001 (Osaka D. Ct. July 6,1989), modified, 197 Zeishi 2670, 1992 WLJPCA 08266004 (Osaka High Ct. Aug. 26, 1992). See also, e.g., Hira
(1991:58-65); Ichinomiya and Group K21 (2013:39-44).
4StKoku v. Nakatani, 197 Zeishi 2713, 1989 WLJPCA 07066001 (Osaka D. Ct. July 6,1989).

Outcaste Politics and Organized Crime in Japan217

advisor's lawyers stressed the OBBF's special arrangement with the tax office. They
quoted the third of the seven principles and argued that in the wake of the principles
the tax office had never required any of the OBBF's other 9,000 members to amend a
return. The High Court nonetheless agreed with court below. It cut the advisor's sentence to two years, and affirmed.
E. Extortion
As the targeted subsidy programs began to shift resources into burakumin-controlled
criminal groups, some groups coupled accusations of "discrimination" with extortion.
Firms responded by paying them to go away.
Observers date the phenomenon to the 1980s. Freelance journalist Manabu Miyazaki was himself burakumin, the son of a mob leader. He reports (Miyazaki & Otani

2000:73):
This period [in the mid-1980s] was the time when outcaste extortion was at its peak. ... During this period, the sheer scale of revenue coming into the mob changed. Earlier, the mob
had done things like sell amphetamines. But compared to these traditional activities, theamount that the mob could obtain through outcaste extortion was vastly higher.

By the time the Ministry of Justice surveyed the problem in 1989, the extortion
had turned epidemic (note the high extortion arrests during the 1980s in Table 2). The
Ministry contacted 5,906 firms, of which 4,097 responded. Of the respondents, 17.5 percent reported they had been targeted by at least one burakumin group for extortion
within the course of 1988. Typically, group members would shout at firm employees
over the telephone, and accuse them of not understanding the burakumin problem.
Sometimes, they boasted about their ties to politicians, and sometimes they threatened
to cause regulators to investigate the firm (Homu sho 1989:33).
The groups did not leave firms alone after only one call. They approached thefirms they targeted 3.2 times on average, 8.8 times within Osaka. From most firms, they
demanded money-cash, subscription to overpriced publications, loans. From construction firms, they demanded a cut of the contracts (Homu sho 1989:11, 33-37). One-thirdof the attacked firms agreed to at least some of their demands. The smaller firms werethe most likely to succumb. Among firms with 1,000 or more employees, 25.0 percent
acceded to at least one demand. Among those with fewer than 50 employees, 38.8 percent agreed (Homu sho 1989:50).

47

Koku v. Nakatani, 197 Zeishi 2670, 1992 WLJPCA 08266004 (Osaka High Ct. Aug. 26, 1992).

4sThe "politically correct" term for these extortion attempts is "fake burakumin actions," or "ese dowa koi." The
BLL uses the term for extortion attempts it has not itself authorized and for attempts it decides to renounce after

the fact (e.g., Konishi's; see Kadooka 2012:208). Apparently following this logic, Rankin (2012) writes that the"yakuza themselves exploit the situation by posing as Burakumin rights groups and pressuring businesses to pay
them compensation."

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F. Perquisites

1. Financial Benefits
Under the SMA, the national and local governments did not just pay contractors tobuild community centers, they also provided burakumin families with a long list of other4 9

benefits.

In cities where the local government had accepted the BLL's one-window pol-icy, the League dictated who would or would not receive these perquisites. When the
BLL excluded its rivals (e.g., burakumin affiliated with the JCP), the excluded families
sometimes sued. The families generally won, and over time the local governments did
eventually dismantle the one-window policies in most areas.so
2. Housing
The government built public housing specifically for burakumin families. Because it
heavily subsidized the rent, people already in the neighborhoods found the units desirable. Because of the one-window policy, the local BLL elite could decide which families
obtained the subsidized apartments. In 1980s Asuka, claims moderate burakumin journalist Kadooka, some League leaders extracted as much as 700,000 yen per family foraccess to these units (Kadooka 2012:86-87; see also Nakahara 1988:78).
With their newfound private wealth, some BLL leaders left the community andbuilt themselves nice homes elsewhere. Some kept their names on subsidized public
housing units anyway and sublet them to other families-sometimes to non-burakumin
families (Kadooka 2012:153-54). With housing as with construction and tax benefits,
mainstream Japanese could and did bid for admittance to burakumin status.
3. Jobs
Soon after the SMA took effect, the BLL sought preferential hiring policies from local city
halls. The SMA statute itself did not mandate this preferential hiring, any more than it
mandated the one-window policy. Shortly after its enactment, however, burakumin began"denouncing" city governments and extracting promises to hire more outcastes (Nakahara
1988:86). Several city governments acquiesced. By the early 2000s, men and women hired
under these promises would form the bulk of the Kyoto employees arrested on amphetamine and other criminal charges (Nakamura & Terazono 2007:22).
4

9Lists of these benefits appear in, e.g., Terazono et al. (2004:292-93),(1980:49).
0

Terazono (2005:37-40), Uphams E.g., Higashi v. Osaka shicho, 30 Gyoshu 1352 (Osaka High Ct. July 30, 1977) (school expenses); Fukuoka
shicho v. Matsuoka, 870 Hanrei jiho 61 (Fukuoka High Ct. Sept. 13, 1977) (housing loan); Maeda v. Nishiwaki
shi, 887 Hanrei jiho 66 (Kobe D. Ct. Dec. 19, 1977) (housing loans); Boiyoku ni hantal shi, etc. v. Ashiya shi, 979
Hanrei jiho 107 (Kobe D. Ct. Apr. 25, 1980) (meeting space access); Nagai v. Osaka-shi shokuin rodo kumiai,
987 Hanrei jiho 112 (Osaka D. Ct. June 25, 1980) (union member meeting); Kono v. Kita-kyushu shi, 1005
Hanrei jiho 150 (Fukuoka High Ct. July 8, 1980) (nursery school access). See generally Upham (1980); Terazono
et al. (2004:203-04, 287); lchinomiya and Group K21 (2013:264-65); Asahi (1982:52-55, 60-69).
"Nakamura is an activist lawyer who twice ran for office on a JCP ticket.

Outcaste Politics and Organized Crime in Japan219

The city of Kyoto delegated hiring in several municipal departments. Formally, it
used an exam, but only formally. Substantively, it gave burakumin "a free pass." Becauseof the split between the BLL and the JCP, it allocated hiring quotas to both the League
and a JCP-affiliated burakumin group. These organizations nominated candidates for
employment, and the city hired as they specified. Naturally, the burakumin groups
nominated on the basis of "how much the person had contributed to the movement"(Nakamura & Terazono 2007:18-19; Terazono et al. 2004:56).
G. Social Effects

1. Resentment
The subsidy program directly raised hostility against the burakumin. Non-burakumin
resented the targeted perquisites. "As long as we have these special facilities [throughthe SMA], our neighbors will think we enjoy special favors," complained one burakumin(Terazono 2005:46). "The hostility against us is bound to continue."
Mob-tied scandals raised resentment higher still. "These scandals involving the
BLL," complained burakumin journalist Kadooka (2004:48), "reproduced and expanded
the negative image of ... buraku residents themselves. I can't be the only one who
thought, hey BLL, what in the world did you think you were doing?"
2. Education
Under the subsidy regime, talented young burakumin made their careers in the mob.
The targeted subsidies directly raised the returns to mob careers. For the syndicates, theprograms were easy money. Necessarily, they increased the returns to criminal employment. In the process, the programs slashed the relative return to education, and lowered the number of young burakumin with the skills required for a career in legitimate
business (Nakamura & Terazono 2007:20; Kadooka 2016:199). The mob did not
demand a college degree to enter its ranks. Neither did the city, which hired on thebasis of BLL nomination.
Kazuo Nakamura and Terazono (2007:21), twice an unsuccessful JCP candidate
for the Kyoto mayor's office, quoted a burakumin resident: "Many of the children andyoung people ... could have chosen a variety of paths after they graduated from highschool or university. Once this [hiring] program came into effect, though, they knew
they could find a job in government whether or not they studied. It simply destroyed
their ambition." Complained one former activist (Ban 2017), "talented young people
and those with selfw-confidence leave the buraku." As a result, "the only ones left are theold folks and the people who work in the [government] bureaucracy."

V. EMPIRICS
A. Introduction

The targeted programs dramatically altered a young burakumin's incentives to join theJapanese mainstream. Directly, they increased his returns to identifying as burakumin:

220

Ramseyer and Rasmusen

if-but only if-he identified as burakumin, he could enjoy the financial benefits, thesubsidized housing, the job preferences, and the tax advantages. Indirectly, they
increased his incentives to specialize in criminal activities: they raised the returns to acriminal career relative to a legal career in mainstream society. We will now see if thesestories can be verified in the data.
B. Predictions
1. Central Tests
We hypothesize that the end of the subsidies in 2002 had the following two effects.
Effect 1: Out-migrationfrom burakumin neighborhoods increased. With fewer targeted perquisites andlower returns to criminal careers, the most resourceful young burakumin increasingly shouldhave opted for legal over illegal careers. They should invest more heavily in their education,and leave the buraku.
To measure this phenomenon, the crucial variable is the rate of out-migration.
This is not a proxy: out-migration is directly the variable of interest. It measures theeffect of the 2002 program termination on the central question: Did ambitious young
burakumin acquire the incentives and ability to jettison their burakumin status andmigrate into the Japanese mainstream?
Effect 2: The attractiveness of burakumin neighborhoods increased.
Secondarily, we measure the extent to which non-burakumin avoided the formerly
burakumin areas. As the criminal syndicates lost power, and the BLL-induced government corruption came to an end, the buraku neighborhoods should-logically-havebecome increasingly attractive

places for anyone to live. To the extent that non-burakumin found these areas attractive, they would have bid up real estate prices.
Accordingly, we use those prices to measure trends in the residual bias.
2. Subsidiary Effects
a. The power of organized crime fell. As the targeted subsidies disappeared, the criminal syndicates would have offered young burakumin less attractive careers. They should haveshrunk in size, recruited fewer new members, and recruited less heavily from among theburakumin. We return to this effect in Section VI.D.
Note two corollaries: first, mob members should also have withdrawn from BLL
affairs. Recall that the League traditionally drew leaders both from idealists and fromthe mob. With the subsidies gone, mob members should have lost interest in the BLL
and the relative influence of the idealists should have increased.
Second, public bias against the burakumin should have fallen. With fewer ties
between the burakumin community and the mob, those Japanese who avoided burakumin out of fear will no longer discriminate against them. In turn, young burakuminshould find it easier to leave the community and join the mainstream.

Outcaste Politics and Organized Crime in Japan221

b. Investments in education rose. With emigration easier, with the mobs offering low pay, andwith municipal jobs subject again to competitive hiring, young burakumin should invest
more heavily in education. Over time, this should cause still higher levels of emigration.
We do not measure this effect directly. Although we have municipality-level dataon education levels, those data will not measure what we want to know. When ambitious
burakumin finish high school, enroll in a university, and join the Japanese mainstream,
they leave the community. Necessarily, their educational levels will not appear in any
data on the burakumin community-after all, they left it.
c. Burakumin incomes rose. For the same reason, we do not measure the incomes in thecommunity. If ambitious burakumin leave to pursue good jobs elsewhere, they will notappear in burakumin community income data. The data on the burakumin community
no longer reflect their incomes.
C. Buraku Location
1. The 1936 Census
Our study turns on our ability to locate burakumin neighborhoods. We identify themthrough a long-suppressed 1936 government census. The government conducted thecensus through its affiliated burakumin organization, the Chuo yuwa jigyo kumiai. The
342-page handwritten document gives the location of each community, the number ofburakumin households in each, and the burakumin population in each. Most of theinformation dates from 1935.
We have taken this list and converted the 1936 locations to modern municipalities. For the most part, only the largest cities retain the names they had in 1936. The
vast majority of the present-day 1,742 municipalities have split, merged, and changed
names, often multiple times. For each entry in the census, we traced the 1936 community to its current location.
We obtained the 1936 census in late 2015. Writing pseudonymously as Tottori
Loop, one Tatsuhiko Miyabe briefly posted the document on his Internet site. Miyabe
seems to work as a freelance writer and publisher and for several years has waged a bitter anticorruption campaign against the BLL. He apparently identifies as a burakumin
himself, but as of early 2017 he remains locked in a vicious battle against the BLL.
When Miyabe announced plans to reprint the census, the BLL sued to enjoin publication. On its national website, it declared its plan to "rip the disguise off Tottori Loop,52
denounce him utterly, and fight until we have purged him forever from all society."
52

Zenkokuren (2016). On April 18, 2016, the Yokohama District Court enjoined him from publishing the hard cop-

ies and ordered him to dismantle his website. It is not clear what the court would have done if Miyabe had simply
posted the census, but he also listed the names, home addresses, and home telephone numbers of 140 BLL leadersand listed the most common burakumin family names in several communities. By late 2016, the website had reappeared, and the census was again available elsewhere on the Internet The litigation, however, was still in progress.
Out of deference to the court order, and because they contain little value to scholarly readers, we omit the identitiesof the 1936 communities in this article. See generally Dowa chiku (2016); Hisabetsu (2016); Kadooka (2016:60-65).

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Ramseyer and Rasmusen
We have no reason to doubt the general reliability of the 1936 census. Given that

Chuo yuwa was more moderate than Matsumoto's violent Suiheisha that evolved into
the postwar BLL, one might have expected the BLL to attack it. The League does not.
Instead, at least one official BLL publication relies on the actual totals given in thecensus (Noguchi et al. 1997:13), as do De Vos and Wagatsuma (1967:117).
To be sure, the census has apparent errors. For example, though Wagatsuma(1967:93) refers to a burakumin community in Aomori, the census includes no sucharea. The prefectural distributions from a 1920 government census (reproduced at De
Vos & Wagatsuma 1967:116 and Chuo yuwa 1936:336) similarly show burakumin communities in some northeast areas not listed in the 1936 census.
Nonetheless, the 1936 census correlates closely with several postwar prefectural
censuses. Despite the massive migration within Japan during the war and early postwar
years, the locations of the burakumin communities have remained largely unchanged.
The BLL itself published burakumin censuses for Osaka (in 1958) and Nagano (in1963). Another group published them for Wakayama (in 1952), and still another for
Tottori (in 1979). The pair-wise correlation of the Tottori burakumin population (foreach modern municipality) in 1979 with the population given in the 1936 census is0.696, for Osaka in 1958 it is 0.985, for Nagano (households) in 1963 it is 0.987, and for.

Wakayama in 1952 it is 0 .9 7 8Panel A of Table 1 reports the prefectural distribution of burakumin according to
the 1936 census. As discussed earlier, very few burakumin lived in central and northeastern Japan. Instead, most were in the Kansai prefectures of mid-Japan (Mie, Shiga, Kyoto,
Osaka, Hyogo, Nara, and Wakayama), and several of the prefectures farther to thesouthwest. Other than Shiga, every Kansai prefecture had more burakumin than any of
the 23 prefectures to the northeast. Kansai is also the focus of the BLL. Together with
Fukuoka, it is the center of Japanese organized crime.
Panel B of Table 1 shows the cities (using the 2015 municipal boundaries) withthe most burakumin in 1936. None of these cities lies to the northeast of Kansai.
Instead, each is either in Kansai itself, or in regions further to the southwest.
2. BLL Branch Offices
As a robustness check, we use a list of BLL branch offices. We took this list from theInternet, where it was probably posted by someone hostile to the BLL. Here, too, reliability is an obvious question, but note that the correlation coefficient between (1) the
number of branch offices in a municipality and (2) the 1936 burakumin population is0.570.54

5

Several of these postwar books are widely available from libraries. Miyabe had also posted these on his website.
Out of deference to the 2016 court order against Miyabe, we omit the names of the books.
-"The site uses a fictitious variation on the BLL's name. Out of deference to the 2016 court order against Miyabe,
we omit the location of the site.

Outcaste Politics and Organized Crime in Japan

Table 4:

223

Summary Statistics for the Variables Used in Regressions

Dependent Variables
Out-migration
Real estate prices
Burakumin Variables
BurakuminAll
Burakumin > 0
BLL Branch Off PC
All
BLLBO > 0
Control Variables
IncomePopulation
Density
Birth rate
Death ratenMin

24,761
19,953

55
0.54

1,742
812

0

1,742
701

0
0.0119

0
0.631

0.461
1.15

45,29054,00252,26054,00054,000

0.2
0.192
0
0
0

1.1
27
22
92
87

1.1
71

.674

Median

Mean

401
30

432
63

3,690
5,180

0

115
246

5,008
5,008

118

100
94
91

Max

13.0
13.0
9.5
3,689
2,203
390
697

SOURCEs: See text.

D. Variables
1. Burakumin Variables

We calculate the following variables for burakumin neighborhoods:* Burakumin: The number of burakumin living in 1936 in the area covered by
the modern municipality per 10,000 of the municipality's population in 1980.
* BLL Branch Offices: The number of BLL branch offices in a modern municipality per 10,000 of the municipality's population in 1980.
Summary statistics are shown in Table 4. Note that about half of Japanesemunicipalities (812/1,742) include a burakumin community. About 100 municipalities
with a burakumin community (812 - 701) do not have a BLL branch office.
2. Panel Variables.
Our panel data derive from a wide variety of government sources that cover all 1,742
Japanese municipalities. 55 There are no unincorporated areas in Japan, so this covers
the entire country. These sources treat Tokyo as a prefecture, and each ward (ku, shi)
as a municipality. They treat the other large cities (e.g., Yokohama, Osaka) as single
municipalities. In compiling the data from past years, the government reports that it has
traced the modem municipalities back to the composite geographical areas. In other5'We downloaded the data for all these variables from the central government website: https://www.e-stat.go.jp/

SG1/chiiki/CommuniyProfileTopDispatchAction.do?code=2.

224

Ramseyer and Rasmusenwords, if a given area shifted from one municipality to another, the government followed the current geographical lines to recalculate the values for the relevant municipalities in the years prior to the shifts.
We calculate the following.
a. Dependent variables.

* Out-Migration: Number of Japanese citizens who leave the municipality per
10,000 population, every year from 1996 to 2010 (not net of in-migrants)(Somusho various years a).
* Real Estate Prices: Mean prices of surveyed pieces of real estate, in yen per
square meter times 1,000, available for every year beginning in 1993 (Kokudo
various years).
b. Control variables.

* Income: Per-capita reported taxable income (personal only) for the preceding
year in millions of yen (about tens of thousands of dollars), every year from1985 to 2010 (Somusho various years c).
* Population: Population, divided by 1,000. Because the Japanese government
publishes a population census only every five years, we interpolate for the intervening years (Somusho various years b).
* Density: Population, divided by area of municipality, in tens of hectares(100,000 sq. meters), every year from 1981 to 2010 (Somusho various years b).
* Birth Rate: Births per 10,000 population, every year from 1980 to 2010 (Kosei,
Jinko various years).
* Death Rate: Deaths per 10,000 population, every year from 1980 to 2010 (Kosei,
Jinko various years).

VI.
A.

RESULTS

Out-Migration

1. Difference-in-Differences
As the targeted subsidies ended, burakumin began to leave their neighborhoods in substantial numbers. In Table 5, we use a modified difference-in-differences design to
explore the effect of program termination on burakumin out-migration. We ask whether
the presence of more burakumin is associated with a bigger shift in emigration after
2002. As our dependent variable, we use the out-migration rate (per capita; not net ofin-migration) from each municipality. All regressions include year fixed effects. Because
the number of burakumin in a municipality in 1936 does not change over the course of
1980-2010, we do not (indeed, mathematically cannot) use municipality fixed effects. In
each case, the regression is OLS.

Outcaste Politics and Organized Crime in japan
Table 5:225

Determinants of Out-Migration Rates

Dependent Variable: Out-Migration

Burakumin

(1)

(2)

-0.0479***-0.0403***(0.0116)(0.0100)

BLL Br Off
Year after 2002
Burakumin * After02-68.3***(3.48)
0.0145***(0.0043)-60.5***(5.15)
0.0127***(0.0044)BLL Br Off * After02(3)-13.7***(2.44)-61.6***(5.16)

3.989***(1.08)

Population-0.0254(0.0187)-0.0389(0.0255)-0.0397(0.0256)

Income151***(17.2)

81.4***(28.5)
0.1552***82.5***(28.4)
0.1528***(0.0203)(0.0203)

Density
Birth rate
Death rate

If

0.165

1.883***

1.856***(0.367)(0.364)0.305(0.345)0.321(0.344)

0.245

0.247

NorES: Coefficients, followed by robust standard errors. n= 24,760. Regressions are OLS, with year fixed effects
and standard errors clustered by municipality. ***, **, *: statistically significant at the 1, 5, and 10 percent levels.
SOURCES: See text.

We begin with the simplest design (Regression (1)). As independent variables, weuse (1) the number of burakumin in the municipality in 1936 (per capita); (2) adummy variable equal to 1 if the year was after 2002; (3) the interaction between the1936 burakumin population and the post-2002 dummy; (4) population; and (5) percapita income. In later regressions, we add (6) population density (to proxy for urbanization), (7) the birth rate (to proxy for age distribution), and (8) the death rate (toproxy for age distribution). In other words, we estimate the equation:
Out-migration = a * Burakumin + b * After2002 + c * Burakumin * After2002+ control variables
This is not the classic discrete-group diff-in-diffs regression, but one may imagine
high-burakumin and low-burakumin municipalities as constituting the classic two groups
and the 2002 ending of the program in high-burakumin municipalities as being thetreatment. We assume that out-migration in the two groups before 2002 was similarly
affected by the control and burakumin density variables. The After2002 variable will pickup changes in 2002 that affected both groups, and the interaction term will pick upchanges peculiar to the treated (i.e., high-burakumin) group.
Crucially, the coefficient on the interaction term is positive and significant: after
the programs ended in 2002, out-migration increased most from the municipalities with

226

Ramseyer and Rasmusenhigh-burakumin concentration. In general, cities with more burakumin had lower outmigration rates than other cities (as the negative coefficient on the basic Burakumin variable indicates). Although this remains true even after 2002, the out-migration rate frommunicipalities with more burakumin begins to climb.
Regression (2) adds population density and the birth and death rates, but thebasic point remains unchanged: after 2002, the rate at which people left burakumin
areas increased more than the rates at which they left other municipalities.
Note several straightforward observations. Richer families are more mobile thanpoorer: migration is positively correlated with income. Younger families are moremobile than older: migration is positively correlated with the birth rate. And urban families are more mobile than rural: migration is positively correlated with population
density.
The size of the coefficients suggests that burakumin began leaving their communities in substantial numbers only after 2002. Recall that we base the Burakumin variable
on the number of burakumin who lived in a buraku in 1936. Nationally, that number
totaled 999,700. In 1975, 1.1 million burakumin still lived within the traditional neighborhoods (see Section II.A). Apparently, about 10 percent more burakumin lived in the
traditional neighborhoods in 1975 than in 1936.
Imagine a town with a population of 10,000. If it tracked the national averages, itwould have had a Burakumin variable of 115 and annual out-migration of 432 (seeTable 4). Given that the coefficient on Burakumin in Regression (2) of Table 5 is
-0.0403, if the town had had no burakumin, out-migration would have increased by
115 * 0.0403 = 4.63, to 436.63. In a town of 10,000 without any burakumin, theout-migration rate thus would have been 0.0437. Given that the town with a Burakumin
variable of 115 actually had (115 * 1.1 =) 127 burakumin in 1975, it had 9,873
non-burakumin residents. If they emigrated at a rate of 0.0437, non-burakumin outmigration would have equaled almost exactly 431. Of the 127 burakumin, barely one
would have left each year.
After 2002, the burakumin began to leave their traditional neighborhoods inlarger numbers. The coefficient on the Burakumin * After2002 interaction term is 0.0127(Table 5, Regression (2)). With a Burakumin variable of 115, out-migration would haveincreased by 0.0127 * 115 = 1.46. Before the end of the subsidies, one burakumin
emigrated each year; after 2002, the number of burakumin

emigrants more thandoubled to 2.5.

2. BLL Branch Offices
In Table 5's Regression (3) we use the same specification as Regression (2) but identify
the burakumin communities by the number of BLL branch offices. As noted earlier, thecorrelation between the 1936 population and several postwar prefectural censuses ishigh. We nonetheless offer the number of BLL branch offices per capita as an additional test of how accurately the 1936 census captures the location of modern
burakumin.

OutcastePolitics and Organized Crime in Japan227

The results remain unchanged: with the end of the SMA-targeted subsidies, therate at which people left the cities with higher numbers of BLL branch offices increased
more than it did elsewhere.
3. Year-Interaction Terms
To study the pace at which out-migration from burakumin communities increased after
2002, in Table 6 we interact our measures of burakumin density with the specific years.
In Regression (1) we interact the years with the 1936 burakumin population, and in
Regression (3) with the number of BLL branch offices. The results are similar.
Consider Regression (1). The coefficient on the number of burakumin per capita
in 1936 is again negative: cities and towns with more burakumin generally had lower
out-migration rates than others. Starting about 2006, however, the migration deficit inburakumin communities begins to disappear. The difference in migration out of burakumin and non-burakumin areas continues to increase through 2008. By then, nearly
two-thirds of the original deficit in the out-migration rate from burakumin areas(0.0229/0.0364) had disappeared. Figure 2 graphs the value of these interaction terms.
B. RegionalEffects
As an additional check on our exercise, turn to the regional- and municipal-level regressions in Table 7. As Table 2A showed, the Kansai cities of Kobe, Osaka, and Kyoto had
the largest burakumin communities in 1936. Other large communities appear on theisland of Shikoku across the Inland Sea and in Okayama, Hiroshima, and Fukuoka to
the west. Organized crime is also primarily a Kansai and Fukuoka urban phenomenon.
Tokyo has its gangs too, but the core of the mob lies in the Kansai cities and Fukuoka(crime is one of the few areas of life in Japan not centered in Tokyo).
Recall our claim: we posit that the large influx of government funds under the
SMA presented the criminal syndicates with a massive source of new income. This
increase in the expected revenue from criminal activity systematically diverted young
burakumin away from legal businesses. Rather than invest in their education and leave
the buraku, young men quit school and joined the mob. When the funds stopped in
2002, the relative expected returns to illegal and legal activity shifted back toward legitimate business. More than before, young men now invested in their education, foundjobs in mainstream Japan, and left. For practical purposes, they ceased to beburakumin.
Turn first to Table 7, Panel A. For these regressions, we partition our dataset by
the median municipal population (29,200) in 1980. In Column (1), we regressout-migration per capita at the larger cities on the Table 3, Regression (2) variables. In
Column (2) we do the same for the smaller municipalities. Organized crime is primarily
an urban phenomenon, and the significant increase in burakumin out-migration after
2002 appears only among the larger cities.
In Panel B of Table 7, we estimate the same regressions for the various geographical regions. Japanese organized crime has its core in the Kansai region, and in both
Kansai (Regression (1)) and Shikoku, (Regression (2)) the out-migration from the

228

Ramseyer and Rasmusen

Table 6:

Determinants of Out-Migration Rates and Real Estate Prices
Out-Mig'n RE Pices

Dep Var:Burakumin
Burakumin * 1998
Burakumin * 1999
Burakumin * 2000
Burakumin * 2001
Burakumin * 2002
Burakumin * 2003
Burakumin * 2004

(1)

(2)

-0.0364***(0.0103)-0.0131**(0.0059)-0.0011(0.0055)-0.0067(0.0055)-0.0049(0.0052)-0.0024(0.0028)0.0053***(0.0016)BLL Br Off PC

0.0072***(0.002)

BLLBrOf * 1999

0.0092***(0.0021)

BLLBrOf * 2000

0.0082***

BLLBrOf * 2001

-0.00070.0118***(0.0052)-0.0114*(0.0059)
0.0021(0.0035)

Burakumin * 2006
Burakumin * 2007
Burakumin * 2008
Burakumin * 2009

Population
IncomeDensity
Birth rate
Death raten(4)-2.65*4**(0.848)
1.85***(0.432)
2.44***(0.526)
3.04***(0.483)
3.48***(0.528)4.45***(0.825)4.04***(0.719)3.96***(0.774)
3.99***(0.820)3.56***(0.819)3.59***(0.755)
3.19***(0.845)
3.91***(0.735)0.66
19,9510.0045(0.0079)-0.0389(0.0255)
81.4***(28.5).01552***(0.0203)
1.883***(0.367)0.3050(0.345)(0.0116)160.10***(54.50)0.2141***(0.0309)-0.2666**(0.1205)
0.3379(0.2288)0.25
24,7600.66
19,9510.25
24,7600.0115(0.0075)
0.0139*(0.0080)
0.0130*(0.0072)
0.0229***(0.0083)
0.0159**(0.0070)
Burakumin * 2010(3)
-1.28***(0.256)-2.638*(1.462)-1.234(1.421)-1.994(1.327)-0.944(1.327)0.0056(1.370)-1.300(1.884)0.993(1.545)2.589(1.839)6.038***(2.210)4.050**(1.862)
5.948***(1.894)5.438***(2.047)1.048(1.642)-0.0397(0.0256)
82.5***(28.4)
0.1528***(0.0203)1.855***(0.364)0.320(0.344)(0.0070)
Burakumin * 2005

Out-Mig'n RE Prices

BLLBrOf * 1998

(0.0030)0.0108***(0.0030)
0.0090***(0.0024)0.0092***(0.0028)0.0083***(0.0026)
0.0079***(0.0023)

BLLBrOf * 2002
BLLBrOf * 2003
BLLBrOf * 2004
BLLBrOf * 2005
BLLBrOf * 2006
BLLBrOf * 2007

0.0071***

BLLBrOf * 2008

(0.0025)
0.0090***(0.0025)

BLLBrOf * 2009
BLLBrOf * 2010

-0.0117-0.0117(0.0116)159.94***(54.51)0.2140***(0.0309)-0.2678**(0.1205)
0.3403(0.2297)

NOTES: Coefficients, followed by robust standard errors. Regressions are OLS, with year fixed effects and standard

errors clustered by municipality.

*, *: statistically significant at the 1, 5, and 10 percent levels.

SOURCES: See text.

buraku increases significantly after 2002. In the prefectures to the east and north, burakumin communities are smaller and fewer. The results for those areas are qualitatively
similar though not significant: the coefficient on the interaction term is even larger

Outcaste Politics and Organized Crime in Japan

229

Figure 2: Values of the Burakumin * Year interaction term (out-migration).

Burakumin*Year
0.03

0.02
0.02
0.01

0.00

11998

0002

0

2003004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

-0.01 4-0.02
SoURCE: Table 6.

than for Kansai and Shikoku, but the standard errors are larger too (Regression (5)).
The criminal syndicates play a smaller role in the Chugoku area (primarily Hiroshima
and Okayama), and the coefficient on the interaction term there is not positive (Regression (4)).
The Kyushu results (Regression (3)) reflect the decimation of the coal industry.
During the first half of the 20th century, the northern Kyushu prefecture of Fukuoka
was the center of the coal industry. Most Kyushu burakumin lived in Fukuoka, andmany worked the mines. Japanese coal is no longer competitive, and the mining towns
are left with little work besides environmental cleanup. The town described earlier as
embroiled in a gang war is one of these decimated coal-mining towns. People had beenleaving these communities long before 2002. For Fukuoka itself (Table 7, Panel C,
Regression (5)), the coefficient on Burakumin is a positive 0.063 with a t statistic of 3.39.

Figure 3: Values of the Burakumin * Year interaction term (real estate prices).

Burakumin*Year
0.012

0.008

0.004

0
1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
SOURCE: See Table 8.

230

Ramseyer and Rasmusen

Table 7:

Determinants of Out-Migration Rates: Robustness Checks

A. By Municipality Size
Dep Var: Out-Migrationper Capita

BurakuminYear after 2002
Burakumin * After02

(1)

(2)

-0.0265(0.0178)-78.2***(5.52)
0.0240***(0.0071)-0.031***(0.0096)-4.37(9.30)
0.00275(0.0051)

11,7110.5020Large

13,049
.209
Small

n
City size
B. By Region
Dep Var: Out-Migrationper Capita

RegionBurakuminYear after 2002
Burakumin * After02

n
2
pe

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

Kansai

Shikoku

KyushuChugoku

Other-0.0149(0.0164)-96.0***(7.98)
0.0162*(0.0091)-0.00516(0.0066)-82.4***(12.4)
0.0113*(0.0060)-0.0357*(0.0207)-30.9*(17.4)
0.00122(0.0104)-0.0242(0.0337)-91.9***(12.3)-0.00662(0.0143)-0.1619***(0.0519)-48.7***(7.47)
0.0215(0.0150)

3,246
0.385

1,375
0.396

3,493
0.156

1,605
0.285

15,041
0.278

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

Hyogo
(Kansai)

Osaka(Kansai) .

Kyoto(Kansai)

Wakayama(Kansai)Fukuoka(Kyushu)

C PrincipalPrefectures
Dep Var: Out-Migration per Capita

Prefectures
BurakuminYear after 2002
Burakumin * After02

n5fi-0.0368*(0.0191)-123.8***(27.4)
0.0628***(0.0175)-0.0291(0.0306)-76.9***(20.3)
0.0471(0.0402)-0.0070(0.0162)-84.0***(18.0)
0.0201**(0.00975)-0.0353(0.0275)-79.2***(17.2)
0.00691(0.0100)

0.0630***(0.0186)
16.395(11.086)-0.0186*(0.0102)

614
0.757

632
0.629

390
0.632

450
0.158

900
0.615

NOTES: All regressions also include Population, Income PC, Population Density, Births PC, and Deaths PC. Coefficients, followed by robust standard errors. Regressions are OLS, with year fixed effects and standard errors clustered by municipality. *** *: statistically significant at the 1, 5, and 10 percent levels.
SoURCEs: See text.

Outcaste Politics and Organized Crine in Japan
Table 8:231

Determinants of Real Estate Prices

Dep Var: Real Estate Prices

Burakumin

(3)

(2)

(1)
0.003617

0.00182(0.00374)(0.00241)

BLL Br Off PC
Year after 2002

-47.251***(3.568)0.004435**(0.001674)

Buraku * After02-53.412***(10.231)0.004435***(0.001674)-1.03(0.744)-53.944***(10.198)

BLLBrOf * After02

2.10***(0.614)
Population
Income0.0567*-0.0117(0.0296)(0.0116)(0.0116)214.3***(33.00)160.1***(54.49)0.214***

160.0***(54.49)0.2139***Density
Birth rate
Death rate

0.53

-0.0117(0.0309)(0.0309)-0.267**(0.0120)
0.338-0.2682**(0.0120)0.3397(0.229)(0.2295)

0.66

0.66

NOTES: Coefficients, followed by robust standard errors. n= 19,951 or 19,952. Regressions are OLS, with year
fixed effects and standard errors clustered by municipality. ** *: statistically significant at the 1, 5, and10 percent levels.
SOURCES: See text.

Out-migration from the Fukuoka buraku did not increase for a simple reason: it was
already very high.
In Panel C of Table 7, we also estimate the basic regression for the four principal
Kansai prefectures. We find no increase in post-2002 burakumin out-migration from therelatively rural Wakayama. However, the results for the region's urban core-Hyogo,
Osaka, and Kyoto-are consistent: after 2002, out-migration increased. Together with
Fukuoka, these three Kansai prefectures are urban. They contain most of the largest
buraku in Japan, they are the core of the BLL, and they are home to some of the principal organized crime syndicates. The coefficient on the interaction term ranges from0.02 for Kyoto to 0.05 for Osaka to 0.06 for Hyogo. The coefficient for Osaka is not
significant, but for Hyogo and Kyoto is significant at 1 and 5 percent.

C. Real Estate Prices
In Table 8 we explore real estate prices. Unambiguously, as the targeted subsidies cameto an end, real estate prices in cities with larger burakumin communities rose. In
Regressions

(1)

and

(2), weregress municipality-level

real estate

priceson the232

Ramseyer and Rasmusenindependent variables used in Table 5, Regressions (1) and (2). As one would expect,
prices are higher in wealthier cities, in denser cities, and in areas with an older population. Crucially, however, the interaction term between the 1936 burakumin populationand the post-2002 years is positive and significant: prices in cities with larger burakuminneighborhoods rose more than prices in other cities after 2002. In Regression (3) we
identify the burakumin neighborhoods by BLL branch offices rather than the 1936
census. The results remain unchanged.
In Table 6, Regressions (2) and (4), we regress real estate prices on the specificyear-interaction terms used for out-migration rates in Regressions (1) and (3). The subsidy program was initially limited to 10 years. It continued through a series of temporary
extension statutes, but voters increasingly objected to the corruption, extortion, andmob power that ensued. In 1996, the government voted to end the subsidies effective
2002. We expect that real estate professionals would impound their expectations inmarket prices before 2002, and so the results show.
We interpret the data as indicating that once people knew the subsidies weregoing away, they began bidding up real estate prices in the buraku. Indeed, theincreases already begin before 1998. We hypothesize that with the program's end insight, buyers expected the mob to lose power, extortion to diminish, and the burakumin
to turn away from crime and toward mainstream society. All else equal, a typical poorer
person might still prefer to avoid living in a burakumin neighborhood. However, all else
is not equal, especially in market equilibrium. The burakumin areas offer lower rents.
Many are closer to the central city and promise a shorter commute. As the general
hostility toward the burakumin declined, mainstream Japanese moved to the formerly
burakumin areas and bid up the price of real estate. We graph the coefficients on theinteraction terms in Figure 3.
In Table 9, we replicate the Table 7 robustness checks using real estate prices as
the dependent variable. The results suggest a phenomenon analogous to Table 7: theareas driving the positive price effect were the areas that had earlier housed the mostmilitant BLL branches and the biggest organized crime syndicates. Initially, note that if
we partition the database by the median municipality population, the coefficients on
the interaction term are insignificant for both the large and the small municipalities.
The post-2002 out-migration from burakumin communities was an urban phenomenon(Table 7, Panel A). By contrast, the post-2002 increase in real estate values for theburakumin communities does not seem limited to either rural or urban environments(Table 9, Panel A).
In Panel B of Table 9, we divide the panel data by region. As with the increased
burakumin out-migration (Table 7, Panel B), the buraku real estate price increase is afunction of the Kansai and Shikoku areas. It was in Kansai that the BLL established its
reputation for militancy and violence, and it is from Kansai that the Yamaguchi-gumi
reaches out to the rest of Japan. It was in Kansai (along with Fukuoka) that the BLL
and the mob most flagrantly corrupted the government administration behind thesubsidies, and most heavily recruited young burakumin men. When the government
terminated those subsidies, it was in Kansai that real estate prices in burakumin communities most clearly rose.

Outcaste Politics and Organized Crime in Japan

Table 9:233

Determinants of Real Estate Prices: Robustness Checks

A. By Municipality Size
Dep Var: Real Estate Prices

BurakuminYear after 2002
Burakumin * After02

(1)

(2)

0.01585*(0.00944)-116.440***(19.845)-0.000934(0.0110)0.00181(0.00173)-17.077***(1.282)-0.000870(0.00120)

n

7,499

12,452

I

0.746

0.668

City size

Large

Small

B. By Region
Dep Var: Real Estate Prices

RegionBurakuminYear after 2002
Burakumin * After02

n
Ie

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

Kansai

Shikoku

KyushuChugoku

Other-0.00695(0.00488)-52.430***(6.058)0.01066***(0.00294)

0.00108(0.00134)-12.305***(3.883)0.00283*(0.00143)-0.00118(0.00197)-7.439***(1.445)-0.000706(0.00191)

0.00167(0.00533)-12.307***(3.711)0.000793(0.00494)-0.0558**(0.0270)-62.780***(12.367)
0.00393(0.00748)

2,209
0.800

1,309
0.694

2,676
0.801

931
0.800

13,096
0.670

C. PrincipalPrefectures
Dep Var: Real Estate Prices

Prefectures
BurakuminYear after 2002
Burakumin * After02

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

Hyogo
(Kansai)

Kyoto(Kansai)

Wakayama(Kansai)Fukuoka(Kyushu)-0.0430***(0.0108)-95.572***(18.208)0.0392***(0.0124)-0.0157(0.0117)-55.839***(12.332)
0.0229**(0.00975)-0.00195(0.00444)
14.710***(4.948)0.00316(0.00279)-0.000789(0.00266)-13.614***(3.363)0.00607***(0.00220)

n

466

349

346

779

1e

0.912

0.902

0.764

0.878

NoTEs: All regressions also include Population, Income PC, Population Density, Births PC, and Deaths PC. Coefficients, followed by robust standard errors. Regressions are OLS, with year fixed effects and standard errors clus* *: statistically significant at the 1, 5, and 10 percent levels.
tered by municipality. *SOURCES: See text.

234

Ramseyer and Rasmusen

In Panel C of Table 9, we trace the effect of subsidy termination on real estate prices by prefecture. Again, the regressions indicate that the positive effect on real estate
prices stemmed from the core urban burakumin neighborhoods. Unfortunately, thedataset does not provide real estate price information for Osaka. For the two otherurban Kansai prefectures of Hyogo (with the city of Kobe) and Kyoto, burakumin realestate prices rise unambiguously after 2002. In the northern Kyushu prefecture of
Fukuoka (home of the hyper-violent Kudo kai mob), buraku real estate prices similarly
rise after the termination of the subsidies in 2002.
D. Other Developments After 2002

As Japan dismantled the targeted programs, governments shifted some burakumin
community centers to other uses and opened some burakumin public housing to thegeneral public (Kadooka 2012:244; 2016:276-77). Cities stopped or shrank their preferential hiring programs. In addition to the out-migration and real estate price increases,
other changes followed as well.
The BLL withered. With no money to distribute, it no longer attracts young burakumin. From over 200,000 during the subsidy years, membership has fallen to 50,000.
Those who remain in the group are old. More than half are over 60 (Kobayashi
2015:12; see Kadooka 2009:26; 2012:246).
The organized crime syndicates shrank. The SMA having expired, they no longer
earn rake-offs from targeted construction projects. With closer police attention, evenextortion and gambling are less profitable. From 91,000 members and affiliates in 1991
and 85,300 in 2002, total syndicate personnel fell to 78,600 by 2010. From there, it
dropped precipitously to 46,900 in 2015 (Keisatsu, Heisei 27 2015:2).
Not only did the syndicates lose members, they lost young members. Table 10shows how the membership decline is concentrated in younger age groups. At one time,
10-25 percent of young burakumin men joined the mob. Now, almost nobody does (seealso Kadooka 2009:113-14). The mob numbers only 47,000, and barely 5 percent of
those men (2,300) are younger than 30. Even if 70 percent of these men were burakumin, the number of young burakumin in the syndicates would only come to 1,600.
Extortion, too, has declined. By the time the Ministry of Justice commissioned its
10th survey of burakumin extortion in 2013, extortion had plummeted (Jinken 2014).
In 1988, 17.5 percent of the firms reported having been subject to burakumin extortion,
including 16.4 percent of the construction firms, 14.5 percent of the banks, andTable 10:

The Decline in Syndicate Membership, by Age

Age

1988

2006

2010

2014

29 & under
30s
40s

30%
31
28

11%
29
23

8%
25
29

5%
21
33

50 & over

11

37

38

41

SoURCE: Keisatsu, I-lakusho (1989:Fig. 1-6); 2015:Fig. 2).

Outcaste Politics and Organized Crime in Japan235

14.2 percent of the Osaka firms. Of the 4,398 respondents in 2013, only 5.1 percent
reported extortion attempts. Those who experienced extortion included only 9.7 percent of the construction firms, 1 percent of the banks, and 3.8 percent of the Osaka
firms. In 1988, the Osaka firms that had experienced extortion had suffered on average
8.8 attempts. In 2013, they received only 1.9 attempts (Jinken 2014:App. Tabs. 1, 2, 6).

VII. CONCLUSIONSIn 2002, the Japanese government ended its three-decade-long experiment in targeted
subsidies for the burakumin outcastes. In the process, it terminated one of organizedcrime's most lucrative sources of revenue. We described how the mob diverted thesefunds, and the effect that the funds had on young burakumin men: by changing the relative expected returns to legal and illegal activity, the funds rewarded young men whochose careers in organized crime.
Quantitative study of the burakumin is hard for a simple reason: the location of
burakumin communities is a closely guarded secret. We overcome this problem throughthe 1936 burakumin census. Having fortuitously acquired a copy of this census, we identify the 5,000+ traditional burakumin neighborhoods. We trace each community to themodern municipal boundaries used for Japanese social statistics. We then construct amunicipality-level panel dataset covering a wide variety of social and economic variables.
With this dataset, we test whether program termination caused resourceful burakumin to integrate themselves into mainstream society, and other Japanese to find theburakumin neighborhoods more attractive places to live. We find evidence of both phenomena. Once the program ended, burakumin increasingly left the community andfaded into the Japanese mainstream. The phenomenon is also tied, of course, to concurrent changes in policing. The Diet voted in 1996 to repeal the subsidies effective 2002;
it began strengthening the legal tools against the mob in 1991, and hiked the numberof prosecutions in 2000. We do not disentangle the two causes. Both increased thereturns to a legal career relative to a criminal career, and by 2006 the out-migrationfrom municipalities with burakumin communities had begun to climb steeply.
The fall in the corruption and extortion, together with the decline in the BLL
and mob, simultaneously caused other Japanese to consider burakumin neighborhoods
more attractive places to live. As the subsidies ended, they moved in. Enterprising burakumin left and faded into the Japanese mainstream. Those in the mainstream, in turn,
moved in and bid up the price of burakumin real estate.

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