Investigative Journalist and author Jake Adelstein shares his eye-opening and often eyebrow-raising insights as he leads us through his experiences with both the Yakuza and the police while reporting on crime in Japan for the last nineteen years.
Jake Adelstein
Investigative journalist
How often do we really think about the darker facets of our society? Most of us read a newspaper article now and then, or perhaps watch a documentary online or on television. Whether we actively avoid thinking about the very real hidden dangers around us, or are simply too busy to take the time, we must be thankful that there are people like Jake Adelstein in the world. Jake is an investigative journalist who has worked from 1993 to 2005 for the Yomiuri Shimbun as a crime reporter. He is also the author of Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter On The Police Beat in Japan, and anticipates his next book The Last Yakuza: A Life In the Japanese Underworld to be published in 2014. Considered to be the foremost Western expert on Japanese organized crime, Jake actively shares his expertise and findings as a contributing writer to The Atlantic Wire, as the manager of the website japansubculture.com and as a pro-bono board member for the Polaris Project Japan, which combats human trafficking and the exploitation of women and children. Jake and his colleagues do much more than simply report the dangers around us. They bring the actions of Japan’s subculture into the light and into our awareness, a powerful step towards building a safer society for all of us.
