Latent Function
Christian Parenti argues in his book Lockdown America that prison gangs serve a convenient function for the prison establishment and officers. They help regulate rogue and rebellious elements within the prison population without intervention from prison authorities. Parenti sees the repression dished out by gangs on non-affiliated prisoners as a latent function of prison gangs. Thus, gangs are often more-or-less tolerated by prison administrators due to the side-benefits they afford.
Read more about this topic: Prison Gang
Famous quotes containing the words latent and/or function:
“The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“The uses of travel are occasional, and short; but the best fruit it finds, when it finds it, is conversation; and this is a main function of life.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)