Ever since Middleborough sort-of criminalized swearing in public, I’ve been prowling the mean streets of that naughty community, looking for hoodlums who talk dirty.
It all began in June, after the God-fearing public came together in a sort-of prayer meeting at City Hall to vote 183-50 to declare swearing in public a civil offense. The 50 who voted “no” were swearing under their breath, out of fear of being the first ones fined for, well, you know.
It was a damn (oops, sorry) clever decision to make swearing a civil sin, punishable by what amounts to a traffic ticket. A criminal statute was already on the books, but cops, prosecutors and judges generally agreed that nobody gave a damn (again, I’m sorry).
The boys and girls at the First Amendment Foundation have sort of expressed an interest in challenging the thing, if anyone can generate sufficient energy to get excited about it.
In my investigative journalism journey through the dark alleys and bawdy nightclub districts of Middleborough, I heard very little dirty talk – and when I came across a cuss word, there was no cop around to land on the miscreant like the Mighty Hand of God.
One of the easiest paths to having such stuff declared unconstitutional is to play the “vague” card – that is, the statute is unconstitutionally vague; in that, in this case, nobody is quite sure which words are sufficiently dirty, in what context, and at what volume and flamboyant delivery, before the cop will pull out his ticket book.
As a Middleborough cop told The Boston Globe, if you slam your finger in the car door and shout out a naughty word, you won’t be ticketed. The law is aimed at someone who is talking to another person, “and using language that is inappropriate.”
Many of these kinds of statutes, from “don’t let your butt show from your droopy pants;” to “don’t play that terrible music so loud on your car radio;” are aimed at young men who lower real estate values just by standing around being rude and crude.
The dirty little secret of this kind of retail, street-corner law enforcement is that it has very little to do with “law” and a great deal to do with discretion – on the part of the cops, the prosecutors and the judges.
It’s not much different than launching an anti-litter campaign: Clean up the neighborhood and make it nice – just imagine the dirty talkers as empty beer cans and used condoms.
A Confusing World
Prosecutors and judges and cops on the beat sort through thousands of “loitering” and “disorderly conduct” cases, attempting to decide which ones are sufficiently entertaining to take to trial; or to plead out at a minimum sentence; or to simply send the bum home with a stern warning. Law? Well, sort of.
While the vast majority of such stuff involves the “other” – those sufficiently down the socioeconomic pecking order so that we don’t really care what it takes to tame them, there is a matter of philosophy and public policy to consider. A government, a criminal justice system, a quasi-judicial agency, powerful enough to do what you like, is also powerful enough to do what you don’t like.
Last year, a charter school in New Orleans suspended eight girls for breaking out in song (a gospel tune, as it turned out, “We Lift Our Hands”) – including two honors students. They had engaged in “willful disobedience.” The cafeteria is apparently for eating – and don’t you forget it.
The community instinct to make everything and everyone just right will never go away. In New Jersey, the Asbury Park city council roused itself this summer to demand enforcement of a 40-year-old ordinance that bans folks from wearing swimsuits on the boardwalk. Don’t want a parade of thongs and skimpy bikinis in Asbury Park. The cops must be thrilled to be on the alert for cute young criminals.
It’s a confusing world, don’t you think? You can swear in Asbury Park, and you can dress sort-of trampy in Middleborough – but not the other way around. Damn. Oops. Sorry.
