Less Than Lethal
Security companies work to produce non-lethal alternatives for law enforcement
In the wake of many high-profile police shootings, American law enforcement officers are trying to find non-lethal solutions to traditional weapons, using both specialist training and technology.
Across America the pressure builds on the search for non-lethal alternatives to guns in the police force. Paul Jensen’s company produces weapons with less lethal rounds – rubber, bean bags, bullet-slowing technology. However, it is hard to find concrete data on how effective these weapons are in the field. “I don’t believe there’s any central repository for that type of a database…so we don’t see it on an incident to incident basis.” Elsewhere, police units are employing de-escalation training to assess all possible scenarios and find the most peaceful outcome. “That’s really where we’re trying to put our focus… Not could we use force, but should we use force?” explains Chief Keith Mello. His colleague Chief Gary Macnamara agrees on this approach: “Conversation is good, but understanding is better.”
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