Stunning technology: corrections cowboys get a charge out of their new sci-fi weaponry.

• Author: Cusac, Anne-Marie
• Position: Life In Prison - Cover Story

Introducing the penal industry's latest toy: It's called a stun belt. An electronic shocking device secured to a person's waist, it is the hot new item in corrections gear. Guards love it because they don't have to get near prisoners who wear the belt. They can set off the eight-second, 50,000-volt stun from as far away as 300 feet.

The manufacturer of the device is Stun Tech, a company based in Cleveland, Ohio. It claims that the R.E.A.C.T. (Remote Electronically Activated Control Technology) belt is "100 percent nonlethal." Sales have been booming since 1994, when the federal Bureau of Prisons decided to use the belt in medium- and high-security lockups. Since then, the U.S. Marshals Service and more than 100 county agencies have employed the belt for prisoner transport, courtroom appearances, and medical appointments. Sixteen state correctional agencies currently use the belt. Seven more are considering it.

But human-rights groups are aghast. "The stun belt looks to be a weapon which will almost certainly result in cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment," a violation of international law, says Brian Wood of Amnesty International, which will launch an international campaign against electronic stun devices this summer. The use of the stun belt in U.S. prisons "will inevitably encourage prison authorities--including those in torturing states--to do likewise," says Wood, who believes the chances are very high that the belt will eventually be used for torture.

Stun Tech's promotional materials rec ommend the belt as a psychological tool, an effective deterrent for potentially unruly inmates, and a humane alternative to guns or nightsticks.

The Stun Tech R.E.A.C.T belt is available in two styles: a one-size-fits-all minimal-security belt (a slim version designed

for low visibility in courts), and the high-security transport belt, complete with wrist restraints. Both come attached to a nine-volt battery. When activated, the stun belt shocks its wearer for eight seconds, with three to four milliamps, and 50,000 volts of "continuous stun power." The painful blast, which Stun Tech representatives advertise as "devastating," knocks most of its victims to the floor, where they may shake uncontrollably and remain incapacitated for as long as fifteen minutes. Two metal prongs, positioned just above the left kidney, leave welts that can take up to six months to heal.

According to two physicians, and a 1990 study by the British Forensic Service, elec tronic devices similar to the belt may cause heart attack, ventricular fibrillation, or arhythmia, and may set off an adverse reaction in people with epilepsy or on psychotropic medications.

Stun Tech denies that its belt could cause fatalities. But the recent death of a Texas corrections officer, who suffered a heart attack shortly after receiving a shock from an electric shield similar in design to the stun belt, raises serious questions about the belt's safety.

Like many other Texas corrections workers, Harry Landis was in train Ling to use the electric riot shield. Like the stun belt, the taser, and the stun gun, the shield is an electronic shocking device. Guards frequently use the shield when removing prisoners from their cells. But on December 1, 1995, something went terribly wrong. As part of the training, Landis was required to endure two 45,000 volt shocks. Shortly after the second shock, Landis collapsed and died.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice, which had used the shields to subdue prisoners since September 1995, immediately suspended their use. Meanwhile,

John McDermit, president of Nova Products, Inc., the maker of the shield, denied that it had killed Landis. "We're very sorry this happened," McDermit said. "But there certainly was no connection between his training and his death."

But Jimmy Wood, the Coryell County justice of the peace who conducted an inquiry into Landis's death, has a different story to tell. "Landis was in fairly decent shape as far as physical appearance is concerned," he says. "He did have a history of heart problems. But was he going to die this day if he didn't experience an electric shock? No, he wasn't."

According to Jimmy Wood, Landis's autopsy showed that he died as a result of cardiac dirhythmia due to coronary blockage following electric shock by an electronic stun shield. "The electric shock threw his heart into a different rhythmic beat, causing him to pass away," he says.

"The shield worked as it was intended to," says Mark Goodson, an engineer who conducted tests on the shield following Landis's death. "Now comes the problem. The manufacturer puts in its literature that the shield will not hurt anyone, including people with a heart condition. But they have not done studies on people with heart conditions. They haven't done studies on people at all. They conducted their tests on animals--anesthetized animals. Do you see the danger here? In one word: adrenaline."

Goodson explains that this is a problem with all pulsed electrical stun technology. "No one can even define a safe voltage," he says. "We don't even have an idea if it is safe or not for the general population."

McDermit continues to believe that Landis's death was mere coincidence. "We think that just happened to be a timing problem," he says.

The stun belt and its relatives are supposed to be nonlethal or, at the very least, less-lethal. At the Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Conference in Los Angeles, I talk to less-lethal weapons manufacturers, representatives of the National Institute of Justice, officials of the Rome and Phillips laboratories, and executives of correctional facilities. They are all quite proud of the newest "less-lethal" technologies. They tell me about products already on the market: mace, pepper spray, beanbag bullets, rubber bullets, plastic bullets, and the stun belt. They also let me in on some new ideas: a cannon-like instrument that shoots a sticky net, disorienting lights, sounds that cause nausea, sticky foam, aqueous foam "doped with pepper spray," and a gun that heats its victim's body up to 107 degrees Fahrenheit.

Many of these devices inflict significant pain. Some are potentially deadly (sticky foam, for...