Police Chief Tyrone Stewart says the measure is intended to encourage parents to teach young people to dress properly especially in certain places.
Mayor Johnny Magee reflects this notion.
I grew up in an era where we were taught to dress neatly,” Magee says. “Now everybody wants to … walk around anyway they want to, and they say it’s their freedom. … Those are not the freedoms [the revolutionary fathers] were talking about.”
The signs were paid with tax payer money, however no Laurel ordinance banning such attire exists. Stewart says the town is working on one and points to Mississippi’s indecent-exposure law as well as similar bans in other Mississippi towns.
An ACLU statement referring to such a ban in 2012 read, "Banning saggy pants in public is an affront to the Constitution and puts people at risk of being arrested for behavior that offends some people’s sensibilities, but is not criminal."
Magee, however, said at least one city doesn’t mind people wearing baggy pants.
"I talked to a police officer in Atlanta,” he says. “He said they love it because as soon as [suspects] start running, they can’t run.”
