Inmate-frying microwave pain blaster turret installed in US jail
'They just go "Yow",' enthuses raygun sheriff
A microwave "pain ray" energy weapon, deemed too controversial for US military use in Iraq, has nonetheless gone into service. A trial installation is in use at a prison in Los Angeles for the purpose of quelling fights among the inmates.
"We hope that this type of technology will either cause an inmate to stop an assault or lessen the severity of an assault by them being distracted by the pain as a result of the beam," Commander Bob Osborne of the LA County Sheriff's Department told the Los Angeles Daily News.
"I equate it to opening an oven door and feeling that blast of hot air... you begin to feel this warming feeling, and then you go 'Yow, I need to get out of the way.'"
In its current incarnation the device is known as the Assault Intervention Device and it is reportedly a ceiling-mounted installation remotely controlled by prison staff using CCTV and a joystick. The Device is said to put out a beam "about the size of a CD" to distances of up to 100 feet, hopefully quelling any disturbance among the prisoners without the delay which results when a team of deputies must be assembled to use traditional whomping or other conventional enforcement methods.
Despite the new name and job, however, the Device is none other than the latest iteration of what was formerly known as the Active Denial System, a riot-busting fry-ray mounted on a Humvee or a truck for military use in crowd control overseas. Despite many requests for it from US commanders in Iraq, the ADS never saw frontline service there - doubtless due to well-founded concern over the headlines that might have ensued. The "pain ray" would surely have resulted in more negative coverage than any number of shootings and bombings.
The deployment in the Los Angeles jail is a trial by the National Institute of Justice, the R&D arm of the US Justice Department - and home, among other things, of the handheld microwave heat-ray "rifle".
If deemed successful, the inmate-roasting ceiling raygun turrets may be rolled out to other US jails.
The Daily News report is here. ®
COMMENTS
Title.
A society should not be judged on how it treats its outstanding citizens but by how it treats its criminals.....Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Heh
Well fortunately noone would ever misuse a device that can cause intense pain with out leaving permanent marks. Would they....
Title!
one thing your forgetting. When the guards shoot they are aiming for the ones still standing so those are the only ones who get hit unless the guards aim is way off.
These ray guns are AREA EFFECT weapons, they will hit everyone, including those who are not involved and complying with the drop directive.
Its not like a laser pointer, it is a spot light.
Whats more barbaric;
shoot those who disobey an order with full knowledge of what will happen if they don't.
or
subject uninvolved people to such extreme pain that if they were enemy soldiers it would be considered torture?
Once this is accepted as "OK" to use against criminals it will be used against group involved in an "illegal activity", like having a public demonstration without a permit.
I give it a year or so before its rolled out to a demonstration or concert for crowd control.
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