Butt out

Flint, Mich., has run out of crime. There are no statistics to prove this assertion, but it must be true. Only the total absence of lawbreaking can explain why the police department has turned to fashion enforcement. Flint, best known as the hard-luck, gritty town featured in Michael Moore’s documentary “Roger and Me,” is being mocked across the globe for its police chief’s decision to arrest and ticket the wearers of sagging pants.

Chief David Dicks is cracking down on unseemly, um, cracks. In Flint, letting that bit of boxer peep over a low-slung belt or showing a sliver of skin below the waistline is now punishable by 93 days to a year in jail and fines up to $500. The chief, whose views apparently were formed and fossilized in the 1950s, says that in his city, the 1st Amendment is irrelevant. “This immoral self-expression goes beyond free speech,” Dicks hyperventilated to the Flint Journal. “It rises to the crime of indecent exposure/disorderly persons.”

Next up for ticketing, long-haired hippies, antiwar flower children and women who work full time.

It’s equally tempting to mock the American Civil Liberties Union, which this week announced that it would look for saggy-panted plaintiffs to file suit against Dicks and the city. But the group is right: Dicks is ignoring the Constitution. Moreover, the practice flirts with racial profiling. Over time, the random searches and shakedowns will most likely target young men of color. It’s as if the chief, who is black, racked his brain for the perfect way to strain tensions between police officers and the black and brown communities they patrol. But whether they are black, white, brown or Asian, arresting people whose only crime is a pair of saggy trousers is just dumb.

The origins of sagging are murky. Some say it’s prison chic -- inmates are not permitted to wear belts. Others say the loose-fitting track suits of old-school rappers metamorphosed into a trend for loose-fitting tops and bottoms. A third theory is that the street fashion became mainstream when Sean John, Rocawear and other menswear lines began designing specifically for blacks -- with pants cut roomier through the hips -- and the look spread. People over 30 may find the fashion ridiculous, but it’s now an accepted part of youth culture. Even if Dicks could stamp it out in Flint, that would still leave the rest of the world.