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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Guardian staff and agency

Electric-shock gloves ICE plans to use inflicted intense pain in army study

a man in uniform wears a bulky black glove
Justin Hall, a jailer in Nelson county, Kentucky, shows an electric-shock glove that is used at his facility, on 13 August 2026, in Bardstown, Kentucky. Photograph: Dylan Lovan/AP

The electric-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.

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

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