The Yakuza, even to this day, is one of the biggest, if not the biggest organized crime syndicates in Japan. While it has been romanticized a lot in movies, TV series and video games, it is nevertheless one of the "nicest" such criminal organizations in the world in the sense that it has always had a quite strict internal code of conduct, a strong set of moral and ethical values, and a sense of honor and duty not only to their own but also to the community. For the most part they leave members of the community alone, ie. in general they don't rob people, assault people and so on, and instead mostly concentrate on crimes like extorting businesses, money laundering, prostitution and so on. Despite their depiction in fictional pieces of media (especially certain video games), they are surprisingly non-violent, only resorting to physical violence when their honor is challenged, or to assert their territory over non-Yakuza petty criminals.
In fact, Yakuza members are known to sometimes act as unofficial "law enforcement" in that they may keep the community safe from such petty criminals. Especially if you are a tourist, and you are attacked by someone, if there's a Yakuza member nearby it's highly likely that he will come to your aid and fend off the assaulter. (Sure, their motivation for doing this has more to do with defending their territory and the honor of their bosses, but the end result is still the same.) They have also been known to help people during natural disasters and other catastrophes.
Their history goes way back, centuries in fact, and their strong set of morals and strong ties to the community made them kind of semi-tolerated by the police. Often the police would leave them be as long as they didn't engage in severe crimes that affect individual members of the community (such as assault, murder, theft, etc.)
But this has changed during the past decade or two, as many new "anti-Yakuza" laws have been passed which have greatly hindered and explicitly criminalized most Yakuza activities. The societal attitudes towards the Yakuza has also changed quite significantly, and for example businesses who have dealings with them may lose their reputation and credibility, and might even come under police investigation, which greatly disincentivizes businesses from having anything to do with them. Where for a century or so the Yakuza was kind of "semi-tolerated", Japan has now over the past decade or two been on an active crusade to get completely rid of them.
It doesn't exactly help that they have fallen "out of fashion" during the past several decades among the wider Japanese society as well. Because of modern societal, economic and technological developments young people have been feeling less and less inclined to join the group. And indeed, the amount of members has fallen drastically: Where the amount of members was estimated to be about 180 thousand in the 1960's, nowadays it's estimated to be about 14 thousand, membership numbers having dropped by an order of magnitude. And even from those 14 thousand the vast majority are late-middle-aged and even older people, and very few young people are joining, so it is expected for the membership counts to plummet at an ever accelerating rate in the very near future.
It is very likely that the Yakuza will effectively cease to exist within the next couple of decades, both because of law changes as well as changes in the Japanese society and culture.
In theory this is a good thing; after all, getting rid of criminals will make society safer and further reduce crime rates. However, some people have wondered if this could actually be a bad for Japan in the long run.
One of the key characteristics of the Yakuza is their extremely strong territoriality and their defense of said territory from non-Yakuza criminals. Essentially, they have been keeping their areas in check from other crime, and stopped any other criminal gangs and organizations from getting a foothold.
However, if and when the Yakuza ceases to exist, it will create a sort of "power vacuum" in the criminal world of Japan. Suddenly nobody outside of law enforcement will be keeping other criminal gangs in check nor stopping them from taking over areas formerly occupied by the Yakuza.
And the big problem if this happens is that most other criminal gangs and organizations do not have the same sense of honor, duty and principles as the Yakuza. If they take over, they will be significantly more unscrupulous and aggressive. Rather than protect the society they will start taking advantage of it, start committing crimes against individual people, robbing them, assaulting them, extorting them, dealing drugs to them, start illegally importing and selling firearms. Turf wars between rival gangs may become common.
Suddenly, only law enforcement will be there to try to stop this from happening. And as has been seen thousands and thousands of times in other countries, they will be unable to completely do so.
So, maybe the Yakuza is a kind of "necessary evil" in Japan. But now they are very actively getting rid of them. Time will tell if other criminal organizations will start taking over the places left behind.
My personal prediction is that it's very likely to happen. Once the Yakuza is gone, expect severe organized crime to take a foothold, and crime rates going up. The police will be unable to stop it completely.
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