Better get a belt
The Flint, Michigan police are going to start cracking down on people with saggy jeans. The above graphic is not a joke, its to illustrate whats allowed and what isn’t. If your pants are too low you get charged with disorderly conduct or indecent exposure, both misdemeanors punishable by 93 days to a year in jail and/or fines up to $500. The Flint police force has moved from crime to fashion.
Wow. Seriously? They have nothing better to do than tell people to pull their pants up? When did America become Iran? Last I checked our police force was not the Police of Vice and Virtue.
Saggy jeans is no more a crime than women wearing bikini tops in public. If you really want to live somewhere that can tell people what to wear, go back to Iran. Otherwise, leave people’s pants alone!
I wish this was a law everywhere. I don’t want to see everyone’s shorts and or butt crack.
wtf?
Funny and frightening at the same time. I’m gonna have to verify this one.
Yup just keep the star sewn to your shirt and you have nothing to fear. oops 70 years off.
Thats hilarious! I know where your trousers like that is retarded but seriously wasting tax payers money on send to court then to jail. Heres a much cheaper option just shoot anyone who wheres there trousers like this and call it fashion crime.
Or I guess not bother….. ?
Good. I hope other cities follow suit.
This is a horrible example of moral enterprise being legislated. Here we see the criminal justice department enforcing the upper middle class notions of what is proper and right and applying it to the whole of society. This law is just as ridiculous as a law that would have people wearing business suits arrested. The fashions of the varied cultures in America are equally valid despite economic differences. The rationale for this law is the same as that which passed prohibition through and made marijuana criminalized— both failed!!!
I live in flint and trust me they won’t be able to enforce this law. In short the Flint police are a joke. Even if they did enforce this they would put thousands of people in jail and as it is the Genesee County Jail is at its limit already. Real crime here is through the roof and if they did arrest people for this they would walk anyway. If anyone from Flint does read this and has been arrested for this I suggest they contact the American Civil Liberties Union at http://www.aclu.org . They may be able to help you out.
Unbelievable. I guess when you’ve solved crime, unemployment, pollution, and poverty in your city, you move on to the other banes of society…exposed butt crack. I suspect the plumbers local union will be on strike within a week.
We could spend thousands of dollars enforcing this, or just give away free belts.
Frankly, I like it.
I am SICK of undie showing males. It’s not attractive.
I just wish South Florida would do the same.
Wow. That sure is retarded. Go catch some pedo’s and murderers ffs.
Hell yeah bitches, better pull up yo britches!
thank god. why where pants at all if you have the waist band at your knees. i think people should be able to dress the way they want but when you see someones ass hanging out. or so low that there privet parts are clearly visible.
I like sagging pants for one reason: You can see who is an idiot without even talking to them. But illegal? Kinda Fascist, isn’t it?
bullshit
Unfortunately the only thing that is “bullshit” is the actual law.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080708/NEWS06/307080009
I don’t care for the fashion itself, but I also don’t like the fact that someone wearing their pants this way could be subject to search, seizure, and arrest.
I don’t wear pants so I guess I’m looking at life in prison.
A few issues. First, it’s illegal to show certain parts of the human body in public – male, female, no difference. If it makes any difference, that bikini-clad girl isn’t showing her butt crack, and if she was, it would be illegal for her too. Maybe that’s a subject of a whole other debate as to why humans are so ashamed of their bodies, but regarding this law, it doesn’t make a difference.
While this fashion of wearing baggy jeans way too low may be popular with some wannabes, it’s also popular with gangs. This is very clever profiling – it isn’t based on race or age or anything else, just the voluntary act of wearing a certain kind of clothing a certain way. So you can rest assured that this is less about protecting the public decency, or fashion policing, as it is about fighting gangs. As the Flint resident points out, there’s bigger problems in that town than butt crack – like gangs. It’s easy to look at this law and say it’s absurd, but you have to remember that it’s part of a larger context.
I’d guess this is what you could call an excuse for a police officer to search. Just as highway patrols look for speeders and people without seatbelts for the primary purpose of getting the opportunity to get close enough to people and their vehicles to sniff for alcohol, which is a much greater crime, so do I suspect that officers in Flint will, with just a look, have the reasonable suspicion to stop a person and begin questioning (Terry stop). Notice that the crime is punishable by 93 days to a year in jail *OR UP TO* $500 in fines. The officer isn’t obliged to arrest anyone. This is just a way for the officer to get in close enough, and to sniff around, to see if a person is a real gangland threat or just a suburban wannabe. They don’t have any interest in jailing the wannabe for wearing his pants too low – as everyone’s noticed, that’s wasteful, ridiculous, and just plain stupid.
But what if it’s not just some suburban wannabe? This is how it goes: the officer approaches suspect, initiates stop. Maybe he’ll say something nice and respectful to start out with, practically idle conversation, just to guess whether the person is drunk or high or just plain dangerous. Then he’ll ask for identification. But before you reach into your pocket, he wants to know whether you have anything dangerous in there, like a gun or a knife. So, based on his training and experience, he’s already formed enough reasonable suspicion to frisk the person. But he’s not just frisking for a weapon – he’s also keenly but subtly looking for clues to drug possession, like small plastic bags, pipes, whatever. And within thirty to sixty seconds, the officer will already know whether this person is someone he wants to cuff and bring in, or whether it’s just a fashionably retarded individual who happens to dress in an awful manner. If it’s the wannabe, they get a stern warning meant to scare the bejeezus out of them and told to go put on a belt. But if it’s a real bad guy, the cop has just made an arrest – with a story that will hold up to a defense attorney’s challenge.
So no, sorry to burst your bubble, it’s not about fashion policing. It’s about making sure that the bad guys that everyone wants behind bars aren’t getting off on a technicality.
This seems a bit absurd. On the other hand, wearing your pants with the crotch around your knees looks so ridiculous it’s almost criminal, so I’m not fussed about it really.
So if you go out and get the morning newspaper off your stoop in your boxers and a t-shirt it’s disorderly conduct? Or you can have your plummer arrested for indecent exposure? What the fuck? All this is just an excuse to allow the police to harass a particular demographic of citizens. Yes baggy pants look stupid, but is it really hurting anybody? What a waste of taxpayers’ money.
next we will be arresting people for wearing blue
Darque:
I don’t want the “bad guys” sent to jail at the expense of my own liberties being eroded.
If the police had more power, do you honestly think you’d be better protected? Ha.
As if the police were paragons of humanity, instead of just regular humans.