Introduction
My personal experience of being âTaseredâ that I recount above is in some ways unique, yet in other ways increasingly common. The terms TASER1, tasering, and being âtaseredâ are widely used to describe exposure to any electric-shock weapon. However, TASER is a brand name which refers to electric-shock weapons manufactured by the American company previously known as TASER International, now Axon Enterprise, Inc (henceforth Axon). From a patent filed in the 1970s, experimentation with multiple designs, concepts, and rationales throughout the 1980s and 1990s (Rejali 2009), and increasingly widespread adoption of the technology in the 1990s onwards, TASER weapons are in use in 100 countries worldwide TASER International 2013 (Axon undated, a).
While TASER weapons are the most widely used worldwide, other electric-shock weapons are also available. Alternative electric-shock products have also sprung up in a number of other countries, with Condor Non-Lethal Technologies (undated) launching the âSpark, the first 100% Brazilian electronic control deviceâ and March Group (undated a) claiming to be the âfirst manufacturer of remote contact (shooting) stun guns⌠in Russiaâ. Companies in China are also reported to be manufacturing or trading electric-shock weapons, including ones designed to be used at a distance (Amnesty International and Omega Research Foundation, 2014).
While such weapons can be used in a number of different ways, this group of technologies are distinctive for their purported ability to administer electricity at a distance via tethered probes or projectiles (hence the terms âprojectile electric-shock weaponsâ and âprobe firing modeâ used throughout the book)2. Used in this mode, certain weapons can, under certain conditions, impair one's ability to move, via an effect often referred to as âneuro-muscular incapacitationâ (SACMILL 2016: 1â2)3. Many of us will be familiar with this type of useâand visual representations of the freezing, pain, and/or falls that sometimes accompany itâfrom (in)famous YouTube videos, police documentaries, promotional adverts, and even Hollywood films. Following the introduction of TASER to England and Wales in 2003, the use of these weapons, and the use of probe firing mode, has steadily grown. Nowadays, they are reportedly discharged in probe firing mode at an average of seven times a day in England and Wales alone (author's calculations from Home Office 2019a 4). It seems I am far from alone in experiencing the effects of such weapons.
This increased use of projectile electric-shock weaponsâlinked, as they are, to trends in the use of less lethal weapons and police use of force more broadlyâshould concern us all. It is often argued that policing in England and Wales and, indeed, good policing worldwide relies on policing by consent. In other words, securing co-operation not through the use of force or coercion but through the common consent, even the good will, of the public, for which the police need to be broadly regarded as legitimate. As such, the argument goes, police should not generally be armed, and when they are equipped with weapons, the force used must be proportionate and necessary.
Questions around the use of electric-shock weapons go to the heart of this rather benign characterisation of the police. With the roll out of TASER, and the similarities some draw between TASER and conventional firearms (Marsh et al 2019, Police Foundation 2009), it is increasingly difficult to claim that the police in England and Wales are unarmed. Instead, it is often claimed that the weapon is fully in keeping with policing by consent because it represents a lower use of force than the alternative.
Such justifications are not unique to England and Wales, or to projectile electric-shock weapons such as TASER, but are found worldwide, including countries where officers are routinely armed. Indeed, the broader class of less lethal weaponsâdefined as those âwhich are intended to subdue or incapacitate rather than to cause serious harm or deathâ (Bozeman and Winslow 2005)âis often initially justified as an alternative to firearms and as a way of decreasing the amount of force police use5. Some go as far to call TASER the âtool of the pacifistâ (Tangye 2016) and cite incidents where they feel the use of the weapon prevented recourse to deadly force. The manufacturer of the TASER weapon, Axon, states that there have been over 240,000 lives âsaved from death or serious bodily injuryâ(Axon undated, b). Condor Non-Lethal Technologies (undated) state that they âdevote special attention to the spread of the non-lethal concept with an aim to educate police and military authorities about the importance of gradual and proportionate use of forceâ and that such technologies âenable law enforcement to use proportional force, which substantially reduces the number of cases needing the use of firearmsâ.
Yet there are concerns that electric-shock weapons are, in contrast, increasing the amount of force used. Emblematic incidentsâdiscussed in more detail in this bookâin England and Wales include the case of Colin Farmer, who was registered blind / partially sighted and Tasered while walking with his cane; Ras Judah Adunbi, a community elder who was Tasered following a case of mistaken identity; and, in an incident widely circulated on social media at the time of writing, Desmond Ziggy Mombeyarara, Tasered while at a petrol station in front of his young child. Nor is this an isolated concern; similarly controversial cases of electric-shock use are reported worldwide and are not restricted to incidents involving the TASER brand (see, for example, Institute for Security Studies 2016). Such incidents raise concerns that this class of weapons, far from helping to decrease the use of coercive force of the State and the negative consequences associated with it, may allow for a greater intrusion, and greater use of force, than ever before. Such a profound shift would, in turn, have implications for police legitimacy, the much-proclaimed notion of âpolicing by consentâ, and, ultimately, state-civilian relations.
Yet the increased use of TASER is of interest not just for the light it can shed on the police role and the relationship between state and citizen. It also has multiple, far-reaching implications for those subjected to the weapon. In the incidents cited above, Colin Farmer, Ras Judah Abundi, and Desmond Ziggy Mombeyarara lived to tell the tale and were able to discuss their experiences of electric-shock weapons. Others were not so lucky.
Michael Gilchrist, who was bipolar and on the autistic spectrum, had TASER and CS spray repeatedly used on him in an incident in 2014. A subsequent court case found that while an initial use of TASER was justified, a further use of the weapon by a different officeâwho deployed it for a cumulative total of 72 secondsâwas not (English and Welsh High Court 2019). His mother, Novlyn Graham stated that:
âMichael did not die that day, but in many ways, he has been taken from us, his family. He is no longer able to communicate and he is largely verbally mute⌠All we have ever wanted is answers and meaningful engagement with the police. Instead, we have been made to feel sub-human. The officers on the scene did not see beyond the colour of Michael's skinâ.
(quoted in Resistance Lab 2020)
Reuters Investigates (2017) records that more than a thousand people have died in the United States âafter being shocked by police with a Taser (often in combination with other forms of force)'. Nor are such issues unique to the United States. In Canada, the death of Robert DziekaĹski resulted in a public commission of inquiry both into the immediate circumstances relating to the case, and into conducted energy weapons more broadly. In England and Wales, the inquest jury in the death of Marc Cole recorded the cause of death as âuse of cocaine, episode of altered behaviour including self-harm, exertion, excitement, the use of x26 Taser Device and restraintâ (Cornwall and the Isle of Scilly Coroner 2020a), finding that the use of a TASER had âmore than a trivial impactâ (Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Coroner 2020b). Many of those who have died following TASER useâincluding Robert DziekaĹski and Marc Coleâwere disorientated, emotionally disturbed (Braidwood 2009), and/or experiencing mental health crisis (INQUEST 2020a) at the time the weapon was used.
Further, as such cases indicate, the likelihood of TASER being used is not dispersed equally throughout the population. Some studies in the United States indicate that Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) people and those with mental health issues are more likely to have TASER used on them (see, for e.g., Brandl and Stroshine 2017, Crow and Adrion 2011; Gau et al 2010, c.f., Lin and Jones 2010). Nor is this an issue confined to the United States. As I discuss further in Chapter 3, similar patterns have been found elsewhere, including in New Zealand (New Zealand Police 2018; OâBrien et al 2011), Australia (Ombudsman of New South Wales 2012), and England and Wales (Home Office 2019a, 2019b, Quinton et al 2020). For example, work by the author and colleagues (Quinton et al 2020) found that TASER use was patterned along lines of ethnicity and perceived mental health status, with people perceived by the officer to be Black or Black British or to be âmentally disabledâ6 more likely to have TASER drawn (but not fired), even after controlling for confounding factors7. Such issues are also increasingly headline news, with calculations by Shinerâwhich indicated that black people are nearly eight times more likely to have the weapons used against themâpicked up by a number of national news outlets, including the Telegraph (Southworth 2020) and the Guardian (Busby 2020). At the time of writing, the NPCC and the College of Policing (NPCC) have just established an Independent Review into Disproportionate Effects of Use of TASER to âidentify, understand and tackle the root causes of racial disproportionality in police use of Taserâ (NPCC and College of Policing 2020).
Such concerns urgently highlight the need to examine the regulatory framework around TASER and other projectile electric-shock weapons. The debates here are not just empirical, although the content and sufficiency of police training and guidance is an important point of contention and one that will be discussed in the book. There are also important implications for how less lethal weapons can and should be regulated, how prescriptive guidance and training should be, and how much leeway officers should be given to make their own decisions around the use of the weapon. Such issues are particularly pressing given the increasingly broad range of less lethal weapons with which the police are equippedâwith officers worldwide having access to handcuffs, batons, irritant spray and, increasingly, spit hoods, TASER, other electric-shock weapons and kinetic impact projectilesâand the growing market for such weapons globally. Indeed, the market for less lethal weapons is currently valued at over $8 billion (Marketwatch 2021), and there are few legally binding limitations on the trade and use of such weapons internationally.
This, in turn, further raises important questions about the role and responsibility of the State in providing training and regulation around police use of force; the kinds of decisions that canâand shouldâbe left to police officers, and the balance between allowing the police to exercise their own discretion and providing them with sufficient guidance. When, for example, the current standard for TASER use in England and Walesâthat it is âone of a number of tactical options available when dealing with an incident with the potential for conflictâ (College of Policing 2020a)âis so vague and markedly different to international standards around the use of the weapon (see UN Committee Against Torture 2013 for their assessment of TASER policy in England and Wales), one has to ask whether we have got the balance right and what effects this has for officers charged with carrying the weapon and for people on the receiving end of it. Such concerns are particularly pressing because, as we will see, TASER policy in England and Wales is held up as a good practice model internationally.
The current ...
