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

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. 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. 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. Watchdog says gloves cause pain and raise safety concerns 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 and protesters who create civil disturbances.

The agency has argued the rapid compliance they cause will keep officers safer and prevent incidents from requiring potentially lethal force. But critics have warned the gloves will give ICE another weapon to intimidate and brutalize people even as the agency is under fire for excessive force that has left a trail of deaths and injuries across the nation. The gloves, they note, are easy to discharge, do not leave a mark and have not been extensively used in settings outside of jails.

The manufacturer warns they should not be used on high-risk populations such as kids, pregnant women or disabled people. “The military assessment in ICE’s own files shows that these gloves can cause ‘intense pain’ and force compliance. It does not establish that they are safe,” said Chioma Chukwu, executive director of American Oversight.

“Everyone should be alarmed that ICE is preparing to deploy a tool designed to inflict, at best, intense pain, without showing that it is s…