Achievements and Challenges Over Ten Years
On November 10, 2021, the National Police Agency released an assessment report covering the decade since organized-crime exclusion ordinances were in place across all 47 prefectures in 2011. The report cited the decline in the number of members of designated organized crime groups (boryokudan), from about 70,000 in 2011 to roughly 24,000 in 2021, as "a result of the ordinances."
Regarding the sex industry, the report assessed that cases of "direct-management" involvement by designated crime groups had fallen by about 60% compared with 2011, while indirect involvement through front companies, name-lending, and tribute payment arrangements remained difficult to grasp in practice and had not been eradicated.
The Worsening "Hangure" Problem
The report singled out the rise of quasi-organized crime groups (hangure, or "semi-gangsters") as a particular concern. Groups that do not belong to designated crime organizations and are therefore less subject to the direct application of the Anti-Organized Crime Act have been moving into the sex industry, increasingly handling scouting, customer acquisition, and money management nationwide.
Hangure groups have looser organizational structures than traditional crime groups, making them harder to crack down on, and they are also highly effective at attracting customers through social media. Some analysts describe the structural shift as a "transfer of operations from organized crime groups to hangure."
Direction of Future Measures
For future measures, the report recommended strengthening the legal response to quasi-organized crime groups (expanding the scope of the Anti-Organized Crime Act if necessary) and reinforcing patrols and intelligence gathering in the digital space.
This article is compiled based on publicly available information.