Old Yakuza Men Without a Pension

If you are a law-abiding employed person in Japan, you pay into the pension system. If you pay into the system for at least 40 years, you qualify for a full pension when you become 65 years old. I think most foreign residents in Japan don’t qualify for the full pension because they haven’t paid into it for the full 40 years. If a person who has paid into it at least ten years, the payer qualifies for a partial pension. 

I read about how older yakuza (Japanese mafia) members who haven’t worked legitimate jobs, are facing a future with no pension or retirement benefits. The organizations’ leaders may have lots of money, but what about the lower levels members? 

A 68 year old member of one crime family shot two members of another family, then waited for the police to come and arrest him. Why didn’t he try to run and hide, you ask. Well, maybe he wanted to get caught. To me, jail sounds like a horrendous place to live, but if you are facing old age with no money saved and no pension, maybe these guys are thinking it’s not so bad. You get three meals, a place to sleep, health care, all at no cost. There may not be a lot of old men doing this, but even if just a few, there is really something wrong with this situation. Yes, if you commit a serious crime, you should go to jail as punishment. On the other hand, if you commit a serious crime in order to get the “retirement benefits” of being in jail, that just isn’t right.

These crime organizations go back to 17th century Edo (today’s Tokyo). At their strongest in modern times in the 1960’s, membership was about 184,000. Membership now is estimated at about 40,000.