Army study found shock gloves purchased by ICE cause pain, compliance and fear

The shock gloves immigration agents could soon use to control detainees and protesters worked so powerfully during a military exercise that participants felt intense pain, stopped fighting immediately and feared additional exposures, according to a previously unreleased Army study.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement leaders were aware of the findings before signing a $16.7 million contract to purchase 6,000 pairs of shock gloves in August, according to records obtained by the watchdog group American Oversight and shared with The Associated Press.

The shocks had a profound impact on Army employees who played the role of combative prisoners during the exercise, which took place at the military prison at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas in October 2024.

The participants, several of whom were large-statured men, stopped resisting seconds after officers applied shocks by touching gloves to their skin, and were left with “fatigue, soreness and excessive apprehensiveness to being shocked again,” the study found.

“After experiencing the effects of the GLOVE, … participants stated just seeing the GLOVE was enough to make them want to comply,” the authors wrote.

ICE has called the gloves “distraction and de-escalation devices” that will be safer than other non-lethal options to subdue targets for arrest and deportation…

Original source: https://www.nbcnews.com/business