Arms using electrical energy in order to temporary incapacitate hostile or subversive people are much debated. The GESLR (Reduced Lethality Systems Study Group) series of publications (June 2009) returns to the question and offers recommendations as to their use in counter-violence situations.

The use of immobilisation weapons using electric energy return regularly to the media front pages. Up until now politicians and public opinion have not had available a clear and costed account of the question. It was in setting about this task that Pierre Thys, professor at the University of Liège’s School of Criminology, Lionel Hougardy, a researcher and doctoral student at the University of Liège’s School of Criminology, and Dr. Eric Lemaire, a researcher and doctoral student at the University of Liège’s Institute of Legal Medicine, have carried out a study published in the GESLR’s (Reduced Lethality Systems Study Group) regular series of publications (1). They thus looked on the one hand at the operational applicability of such weapons, and on the other at their acceptability from a legal point of view, as well as in terms of medical risks and their use. Before diving into the core of the debate it is necessary to look at definitions of these arms. ‘The concepts of non-lethal or reduced lethality weapons are misleading and erroneous,’ stresses Pierre Thys. ‘They are not pertinent from a qualitative perspective because there does not exist an intermediate state between life and death, whilst on a quantitative level a tolerable number of deaths is politically a highly variable given on which consensus is very difficult to reach.’ The more precise French vocabulary has been taken up again and we thus speak of temporary immobilisation weapons, which are divided up into chemical incapacitation weapons (tear gas, pepper sprays, etc.), arms utilising strikes at distance (arms called kinetic) and electric weapons. As far as the latter are concerned, the American company Taser is well known, but there exist other manufacturers, notably Russian and Czech.

Operational applicability

Temporary immobilisation electric impulse weapons are generally widespread in North America. In Europe they are in particular used in France and Great Britain. In Belgium only the elite units of the federal police force are equipped with Tasers. Electric impulse devices operate according to two modes: the remote or tethered system which fires two darts connected to the system’s electrodes by two wires; the direct contact mode (‘drive stun’) where the circuit’s electrodes are in direct contact with the target person. The Taser can be used according to these two modes. The M26 or X26 Tasers fire two darts at the target person, each of a length of 9.5mm and connected to the device by two wires which deliver the electric charge to the darts. They contact the person either through the skin or through the clothing and complete the electrical circuit. The device can thus deliver a series of electrical pulses lasting 5 seconds which will produce an uncontrollable muscular contraction leading to the target person experiencing loss of postural control and falling.

(1)THYS P., HOUGARDY L. & LEMAIRE E., Les armes électriques de neutralisation momentanée, Etat de la question et recommandations quant à une utilisation éventuelle dans les interventions de contre-violence, Les Cahiers du GESLR, Juin 2009.