Ok County Jail staff to start using non-lethal shock glove

Last Updated on March 23, 2024, 1:11 PM | Published: March 22, 2024

OKLAHOMA CITY— The Oklahoma County Detention Center (OCDC, Jail) is getting new equipment meant to help detention officers avoid grappling with detainees. 

Physical struggles with noncompliant detainees can lead to injuries for both staff and detainees, according to jail leadership.

Instead, new shock gloves that can be worn by detention officers to prompt compliance with less chance for injury were being rolled out Friday at the Jail. 

A demo was carried out by a company representative to the media the same day.

Justin Morris, with Compliant Technologies, was in Oklahoma City at the Jail for staff training on the three pairs of gloves the OCDC is purchasing. 

The device is called “The G.L.O.V.E.,” which stands for “generated low output voltage emitter.”

“Studies show that if you’re fighting or wrestling with a subject, if that goes a minute or longer, there’s an 80% risk of injury to either the officer, the subject or everybody,” said Morris in a news conference Friday.

The equipment looks at first glance like most tactical gloves worn by police and detention officers. But, the difference is in the equipment that is built into the glove that can deliver a shock to anyone whose bare skin has contact with pads on the palm side of the glove.

Demonstration

A demonstration was carried out by Morris and Detention Officer Crystal Paul who is a tactical trainer for other detention officers.

In the demo scenario, Paul was refusing to remove her hands from the table and Morris used the shock glove on her right arm. She immediately winced and reacted by pulling away from the table sharply. 

They pointed out that there were no burn marks and Paul said that the sensation was one of burning “but it goes away pretty quick.”

Morris said that the shock glove starts at a relatively low level of power and then quickly escalates in voltage the longer it is in contact with bare skin between two pads on the glove.

Why?

Jail CEO Brandi Garner emphasized that safety for the officers and for detainees was the goal with the shock glove.

Garner said the staff at the Jail at present is 65% female, but, the population is 80% male.

“We want to utilize every tool available to us in order to gain control of a situation, and the ability to do this and use this with very little risk to the resident or our staff is important to us,” said Garner.

“It’s much safer, in my opinion, than just going hands on without any other tool,” Garner said.

“I don’t want to say it’s safer than OC [pepper spray], but obviously, with OC you’re going to have multiple exposures,” said Garner. “I think it just gives them another tool. I don’t know that it’s something that they’ve lacked. I do think that … it is an equalizer.”

The equipment is so new that Garner said they were still working on where the use of the gloves would be on their use-of-force matrix, which serves as a guide for how detention officers proceed with escalating levels of force when verbal commands are not working with a detainee.

Details

Here are key details about The G.L.O.V.E. from the company website:

• Composition: High grade leather gloves with various styles/purposes
• Sizes: S, M, L, XL, XXL (depending on the model)
• Weight: 9-23 oz. or 260-650 grams
• Activation: 1 second on via switch located on the glove
• Duration of stimulation: 2.0 hours, event recordable with time/date stamp
• Duration of charge: from 12 hours (standby mode) to months
• Battery: 3.7v Lithium Ion
• Charge time: 2 hours from zero, Micro-Processor good for 2,000 recharges, Micro-USB
• Maximum Voltage: 210-320V (cannot go above 380V)
• Maximum Current: 0.9-1.5A
• Pulse Duration (μs): 105-115 (.000115 Second)
• Pulse Charge (μC): 84-125 (.000125 Amp-Second)
• Pulse Repetition Rate (pps): 29.7 – 30.8
• Duty Cycle (%): 0.32 – 0.35
• Operation Temperature: 14°F to 122°F (-10°c to 50°c)

No timeline has been given for further deployment of more gloves in the future.

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