Jackson Free Press

Jackson City Council President Leslie McLemore said it best in summing up the proposed "Sagging Pants Ordinance," when he described it as "a waste of council time." He's got a point, and the majority of the council agreed with him this week in rejecting the ordinance with a 4-to-2 vote.

Florida's Riviera Beach is even more forthright in its opposition to saggy pants, with the city's largely black population passing a 2008 election referendum outlawing the fashion fad within city limits. Mayor Thomas Masters put the vote on the ballot as an agenda item, and praised its passage, though District 1 Councilwoman Lynne Hubbard told the Jackson Free Press that she can't tell the difference now almost a year after it passed.

Hubbard, whose city is about 75 percent black, says she's seeing "as much underwear as I've ever seen."

Descriptions from Hubbard and another councilman from Flint, Mich., suggest that the local police are hesitant to prosecute anybody for loose jeans, possibly out of fear of violating someone's constitutional rights. In fact, it sounds like police are looking to book a suspect for everything short of gravity-afflicted pants when they bring them downtown.

We have no idea what driving force pushes city youth to lower the tan-line on their butts, but we think the push to put an end to the fad is a PR move to convince some of the less suspecting city residents that leaders are battling crime. Worse, it is a distraction from the real problems facing the city.

The kind of crime that makes news in the city of Jackson does not pertain to spray-painting buildings and vandalism—two of the more common crimes associated with teens. The vast majority of criminal behavior in the city, according to police dockets, appears to be perpetrated by adults around the age of 30. And most of them, despite accusations, seem to know how to wear a belt.

Stokes may argue that collapsing britches are an open door for future transgressions, that singling out fashion miscreants now will prevent future criminal behavior—but the city has been closing down one afternoon shelter after another, mostly because of the growing shortage of funding. Not one council member is likely to praise the closing of after-school programs, and it's doubtful that any miss the connection between afternoon aimlessness and future criminal behavior.

Get with the program, Jackson. Fixing the system involves fixing the mind, and a healthy mind that thinks it's going somewhere in life tends to take care of itself. It knows how to snap its britches, for starters.

Previous Comments

ID

142907

Comment

"Descriptions from Hubbard and another councilman from Flint, Mich., suggest that the local police are hesitant to prosecute anybody for loose jeans, possibly out of fear of violating someone’s constitutional rights. In fact, it sounds like police are looking to book a suspect for everything short of gravity-afflicted pants when they bring them downtown." These "sagging pants" ordinances are prime examples of stupid government at work. Thankfully wiser heads prevailed in Jackson's case. As if JPD doesn't have enough more serious crimes on its plate without worrying about jeans hanging off a dude's ass.

Author

Jeff Lucas

Date

2009-01-14T19:30:53-06:00

ID

142957

Comment

What does it tell you when police in Flint, MI--one of the poster boys for crime-ridden cities in America--is ambivalent to the sagging pants ordinance? And if there is still as much sagging pants in Riviera Beach, FL, now as there were before the ordinance passed, seems to me that the city councils of all the cities that have ordinances wasted their cities' time instead of focusing on what works to prevent crime from happening.

Author

golden eagle

Date

2009-01-18T09:00:09-06:00