CROWD CONTROL TECHNOLOGIES - Omega Research Foundation

1. INTRODUCTION
SECTION B: ARGUMENTS AND EVIDENCE
This present study grew out of a 1997 STOA report, 'An Appraisal of the Technologies of Political
Control' of which crowd control weapons were a part, and takes that work further. 6 Its focus is two fold:-
(i) to examine the bio-medical effects and the social & political impacts of currently available crowd
control weapons in Europe;
(ii) to analyse world wide trends and developments including the implications for Europe of a
second generation of so called non-lethal weapons originating from the national nuclear
laboratories of the United States & private corporations.
Seven key areas are covered by the reports project brief, (for both within and outside the European
Union), namely: (a) a review of available crowd control technologies; (b) relevant legislation at national
and EU levels; (c) the relative efficiency of crowd control technologies; (d) their physical and mental
effects on individuals; (e) the actual and potential abuse of crowd control technologies; (f) an
assessment of future technologies and their effects; and finally (g) an appraisal of less damaging
alternatives such as CCTV.
Whilst allegedly non-lethal crowd control weapons have gained increasing prominence in recent
years as tools for managing contemporary internal security demands, there has been a long standing
search for, and deployment of, such weapons throughout the 20 th Century dating from their use in the
former European colonies. Historic examples include so called tear gas, wooden and rubber bullets,
electric cattle prods and watercannon used by British colonial forces in Cyprus and Hong Kong, who
also developed a new set of riot control techniques. 7 The earlier STOA report on this subject (PE
166.499) emphasised that new crowd control technologies encompassed not just the hardware or
apparatus of technical performance, but also the software - the standard operating procedures,
routines, skills and associated tactics for deploying public control weapons. Thus these riot control
tactics themselves can be considered as a technology, capable of refinement and transfer and
consisting of a spectrum of options containing increasing levels of coercion.
Many of these riot control techniques have been further systematized in terms of collective tactics
e.g. using wedges, shields, batons, horses and riot weapons which work on a formulaic basis
according to the military model which spawned them. It is now widely recognised that this process can
militarise the police into Special Weapons and Tactics Units such as the Grenz Shutz Gruppe in
Germany; the Gendarmeries in France, the Caribiniere in Italy; the Special Patrol and Tactical Aid
Groups in the UK and the FBI,DEA and BATF paramilitary teams in the USA. Such groups undertake
tactical training that is the mirror image of their military counterparts involved in operations other than
war and adopt the same weapons technologies. The perceived utility of this class of technology
derives from the flexibility it supposedly offers states in their use of force during public order
operations, whether organised by the police, military or another force in between.
The subject matter presented here is inevitably sensitive since there is little agreement on what
constitutes a non-lethal weapon. There is little agreement on terminology with less lethal, less than
lethal and non lethal used as interchangeable terms, even though as this report makes clear in certain
circumstances could be described as lethal or pre-lethal technologies. A key concern here is public
relations. For example, one US definition from the Department of Defence has defined non-lethal
weapons as )discriminate weapons that are explicitly designed and employed so as to incapacitate
personnel or material, while minimising fatalities and undesired damage to property and environment.( 8
However, significant grounds can be presented for challenging this stance. There has been a
revolution in the availability of crowd control weapons and a second generation of weapons is emerging
including new chemical irritants and calmatives; kinetic and electroshock weapons; sticky foams;
entanglements; directed energy acoustic devices, pulsed plasma and radio frequency weapons, which
are further elaborated in Section 6 below and tabulated in Appendix 4. 9 Fuelled by operations other
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