Electric shock gloves ICE plans to use for intense pain in military study | ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement)

Electric shock gloves that immigration agents may soon use to screen detainees and protesters worked so powerfully during a military exercise that participants felt intense pain, immediately stopped fighting and feared further exposure, according to a first-of-its-kind military study.

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

The shocks had a profound impact on the Army employees who played the role of prisoner combatants during the exercise, which took place at the Fort Leavenworth military prison in Kansas in October 2024 – as the Biden administration was in its final months.

The participants, many of whom were tall men, stopped resisting seconds after the officers applied shock by touching their skin with the gloves, and were left with “fatigue, pain, and excessive apprehension about being shocked again,” according to the study.

The gloves carry the brand name GLOVE, which stands for Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter, and are manufactured by Compliant Technologies, a military veteran-owned company based in Lexington, Kentucky.

When it emerged that the second Trump administration was ordering these devices for ICE, amid a harsh anti-immigration crackdown and record arrests and detentions of immigrants the government wants to deport, experts expressed concern and pointed to some high-profile lawsuits over their use in local correctional facilities.

In one extreme case, a 43-year-old man died after being shocked 40 times by police officers with a combination of gloves and a Taser in a Kentucky county jail, and the man’s widow is suing authorities.

In the previous military exercise, the authors of the study shared with AP said: “After experiencing the effects of GLOVE…participants said that just seeing the GLOVE was enough to make them want to comply.” »

ICE has called the gloves “distraction and de-escalation devices” that will be safer than other non-lethal options for subduing targets for arrest and deportation and protesters who create civil unrest. The agency argued that the rapid compliance they drive will keep officers safe and prevent incidents from requiring potentially deadly force.

But critics have warned that the gloves would give ICE another weapon to intimidate and brutalize people, even as the agency is criticized for excessive force that has left a trail of deaths and injuries across the country.

“The military assessment in ICE’s own records shows that these gloves can cause ‘severe pain’ and compel compliance. This does not establish that they are safe,” said Chioma Chukwu, executive director of American Oversight. “Everyone should be alarmed that ICE is about to deploy a tool designed to inflict, at best, intense pain, without demonstrating that it is safe for the people who will be subjected to it.”

ICE released the study and other documents to American Oversight as part of the group’s Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the agency seeking records related to its use of force.

The military prison study evaluated whether gloves could be used effectively to forcibly remove combative prisoners from their cells, to respond to disturbances in common areas, and to transport uncooperative inmates. Role-play staff performed several scenarios with and without gloves to test their impact, including violent encounters in which inmates had to fight as hard as they could.

The study found that the use of gloves “increased the efficiency” of teams performing forced cell extractions and responding to disruptions by reducing the duration of physical encounters, preventing guards from becoming exhausted, and preventing injuries. They did not “significantly change” the time needed to screen inmates during escorts, but required less effort.

“GLOVE boosts the confidence of smaller or less trained members,” according to the study. “Inmate compliance was immediate” compared to other methods, he adds.

The electric shock does not cause the body to freeze like a Taser shock does, but “works by overloading peripheral nerve endings” in the skin to cause pain, according to the study. Participants who were wet or had oil on their skin described even more powerful shocks, with one reporting discomfort for 30 minutes afterwards.

ICE’s contract requires the manufacturer to deliver the gloves within six months. The company’s owner, Jeff Niklaus, declined to make himself available for an interview.

White House border czar Tom Homan said it could “take a while” before the gloves are on the ground because ICE is still ironing out training and policy issues. A statement released Tuesday by ICE did not answer questions about the study and the status of the deployment, but said “agents are highly trained in de-escalation tactics.”

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada said ICE had not responded to an Aug. 27 letter in which she and 15 other Senate Democrats called on ICE to abandon plans to buy the gloves or explain how they would be used and prevent abuse. She said she still wanted answers.

“Without ICE’s answers to legitimate questions from 16 U.S. senators, the American public is left in the dark about how these electric shock gloves are deployed and what training, if any, is given to the officers who use them,” she said.