A state senator from Brooklyn is asking for stricter legislation in schools to stop the trend of sagging pants worn by many young men across the five boroughs, calling the style a "broken window of social behavior."
Sen. Eric Adams, in an op-ed for the New York Post, said his district is "ground zero for sagging", and says the style represents more than just teenage rebellion.
"It is symbolic of the erosion of basic, normal decency," he writes. "People shouldn't be displaying their pubic hairs."
Adams criticized more people for not doing more to try to influence younger people to wear their pants differently.
He says he asked Department of Education Chancellor Dennis Walcott at an event in Brooklyn last year to look into enforcing a dress code to include banning the pants style. Walcott, he says, told him he would "look into the legality of" banning the no-belt style in schools. Adams also said Mayor Bloomberg, who he says had once spoken out against being the "dress-code police", is too far-removed from most of the city to even realize the disturbing trend.
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In 2007, a town in Louisiana made it against the law for people to wear their pants low enough to expose underwear, and the punishment was a fine of as much as $500 or six months in jail.
President Obama spoke about the sagging pants style in 2008, before he was elected. He didn't support legislation banning it but did say that "brothers should pull up their pants."
