ICE Awards a $16.7 Million No-Bid Contract for 6,000 Pairs of Electric-Shock Gloves at $2,495 a Pair

ICE posted a $16.7 million no-bid contract on Aug. 27 for 6,000 pairs of electric-shock gloves, signed the day before with Compliant Technologies LLC of Kentucky. The device, marketed as the G.L.O.V.E. — Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter — works as an ordinary patrol glove until an officer switches on its "electrical mode," then delivers a painful shock on contact with skin. Each pair costs $2,495. Procurement papers describe the gloves as "conductive distraction and de-escalation devices" for arrests, detainee transport and disturbances at detention facilities, and say they may be used when a person is "actively or passively resisting."

The purchase extends a technology used mainly by local police and jails to a nationwide civil enforcement agency, where encounters are administrative rather than criminal and pain compliance would often be applied to people facing no criminal charge.

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and 15 other Democratic senators urged ICE the same week to abandon the buy, citing proportionality, medical safety and oversight. The ACLU said giving agents "a concealed means of delivering terrible pain is a recipe for more harm to the public and less accountability." DHS called that criticism "despicable" and said its officers are highly trained in de-escalation.