97 ford escort tail lights stay on when i turn it off?

It is the switch on top of your brake pedal arm. It is a push button switch that pushes out when you push on the pedal, Same thing happened to my car and ran the battery down. All you need to do is adjust. Just take a wrench and loosen the nut holding it on and set it to where the button is all the way in when the pedal is at rest. It won't take much and it should work ok again.