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Chicago Group Sick of Saggy Pants, Wants Ban

Another group of concerned citizens calls the look offensive.

A Chicago group doesn’t care what the latest fashion trend is—they are sick of seeing lots of underwear on their streets.

 

Empowered Citizens of North Lawndale, a neighborhood group in Chicago, is calling on city leaders to make an amendment to indecent exposure laws that will make saggy pants illegal. They said the trend is offensive, telling FOX Chicago that the African-American community in particular needs to hold itself to a higher standard.

 

Should city governments be able enforce how citizens are to dress? The Illinois American Civil Liberties Union says no. The ACLU said that saggy pants laws have a disproportionate racial impact, “mostly, perhaps, on African-Americans,” reports FOX Chicago.

 

This is not the first crusade against saggy pants and it isn’t likely to be the last. For some cities, the sight of exposed underwear has actually benefited them, however. In Albany, Georgia, officials say the city generated nearly $4,000 in fines in less than a year.

 

Recently, two states have taken the crackdown into classrooms. Last spring, the Florida legislature passed the "Pull Your Pants Up" law that prohibited students from wearing saggy pants at school, which was enacted at the start of the 2011-12 school year. Democratic state Sen. Gary Siplin of Orlando, who initiated the push, even went as far as to bring 200 leather belts to schools in August to ensure students started the year with both their heads and their pants held high. The law made Florida the second state to enact widespread prohibition of saggy pants. In March, Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe signed a similar bill into law in that state.

 

Saggy pants have drawn ire from critics who say the trend mimics the look of prison inmates, who, for safety reasons, were not allowed to have belts.

 

Do you think local and state governments should control how low you wear your pants? Tell us in the comments section below.

 

(Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

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