Editorial: Bag these laws

Saturday, Sept. 22, 2007 | 7:43 a.m.

Several cities across the nation are telling people to hike up their pants if they don't want to avoid a ticket or, amazingly, a little time in jail.

Crackdowns on baggy, low-riding pants - worn low enough to expose one's boxers or, worse, one's bareness - are cropping up in big cities such as Atlanta and small ones such as Opelousas, La., where wearing pants too low can lead to a $500 fine and up to six months behind bars. Similar ordinances have been considered or enacted in towns or school districts in Arkansas, California and New Jersey.

It's not that municipal officials want to get hemmed in as fashion police. It is what the style represents. According to a story by CNN this week, the fashion trend originated more than 20 years ago in prisons, where inmates aren't allowed to wear belts with baggy prison britches out of fear the belts could be used as weapons or for hangings.

The style has long since been embraced by the hip-hop and skater cultures - so long, in fact, that it may already be over. Clarence Page, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune, wrote this month that "saggy baggies" are, according to Page's teenage son, already fading from popularity. As is typical with these kinds of issues, the grown-ups are stepping into a game where the rules already are changing.

And don't police officers have better things to do?

True, some of the suspects whom authorities seek prefer the baggy look, and local officials hope eliminating the symbol will help chip away at the deeper, and far more troubling, urban decay that their communities face.

But lumping whole groups of people into a category with criminals simply because of how they dress doesn't fix anything.

Besides, as Page noted, a police officer has a much better chance of catching a suspect with saggy pants. Running in such britches likely would mean getting caught - oh, pardon us - with one's pants down.