Sagging Pants Essay

1278 Words6 Pages
Flint Says No to Crack Over the past few years, loose sagging pants have become a fashion trend worldwide. While this fashion trend has become popular among today’s youth, and some adults, a wider margin of the population seems to find this style of clothing offensive and inappropriate. To solve this disagreement, some cities, such as Flint, Michigan, have decided to include sagging pants in their city’s indecent exposure law. This law states that if someone is caught with sagging pants either exposing skin or undergarments, they will be warned for their first offense, fined for the second, and finally receives jail time and additional fines for every offense beyond the second. While this law has many beneficial outcomes to limit the indecency and offensiveness of this fad, it also brings forth a conflict between what is considered inappropriate and what is merely a matter of self-expression. Flint’s origination of this law came from Police Chief David Dicks who implemented this law because “it’s a national nuisance. It is indecent and thus it is indecent exposure, which has been on the books for years.” The guidelines of this law were established as three stages that the offender could be placed in. The first stage is a warning and occurs when the person’s underwear is exposed. The second is considered disorderly conduct, which is when underwear is exposed, and the beltline of the pants are below the person’s buttocks. Following is the final stage, which is indecent exposure and includes when the person’s buttocks are exposed. The punishments for either of the last two stages are 93 days to a year in jail and/or up to $500 in fines. The severity of the punishment has brought up the opinions of many residents in Flint and it’s surrounding areas. Many people believe that the singularization of this one fad is more than just for indecency, but for discrimination of

More about Sagging Pants Essay

Open Document