The glove ICE wants delivers 380V. The maker calls it 'humane.'

Immigration and Customs Enforcement plans to spend up to $20 million on gloves that deliver electric shocks, according to a procurement notice the Department of Homeland Security published this week and reported by The Verge. The manufacturer markets the device as a "humane, low-optics" de-escalation tool. The ACLU reads the same spec sheet as "a recipe for harm to the public."

The notice does not say how many pairs ICE wants, only that ICE expects delivery by March 2027. The gear in question is the CTG 5 GLOVE, built by Compliant Technologies and sold as the CD3, short for Conductive Distraction and De-escalation. The full product name expands to Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter, which is how an official document describes a shock device without the word shock appearing anywhere.

What the CTG 5 GLOVE actually is

The glove works through contact. A switch on it activates the shock in about a second, and the company rates the maximum output at up to 380 volts on skin contact, a jolt that The Verge notes is closer to a dog's shock collar than a taser. The user guide says the shock "inhibits/distracts the subject from performing coordinated muscle movement."

Compliant Technologies pitches the CD3 as "a great, humane, low-optics, de-escalation solution" that is "usually effective in bringing individuals into compliance in less than three seconds." Because the glove is not immediately identifiable as a weapon, the company describes it as an "invisible partner" that can enhance "established tactics, techniques and procedures," and brands the product line "The New Protocol in Peace Keeping." For a federal contract, the distance between that language and the specifications is striking: the voltage sits in the fine print, the humanity in the headline.

Invisibility is the design and the problem. A shock delivered by a glove reads as a handshake to anyone watching from a distance, so the device's safeguards live or die on the discipline of the person wearing it.

The warnings in the user guide, and the 2022 precedent

The same user guide lists hard limits: no more than one pair on a single individual, no shocks longer than 15 seconds, no use against children, the elderly, pregnant people, or people with disabilities. The hardware enforces none of it. These are instructions to the officer holding the switch.

The record for that arrangement is not reassuring. Similar gloves from the same company have already been used by select police departments and jails in recent years, and in 2022 two corrections officers were charged with beating and shocking an inmate in two separate attacks. The purchase also fits a wider pattern of tech vendors positioning themselves for government work, from xAI's pivot into defense work to this glove in ICE's procurement notice.

The ACLU's case against the shock gloves

The ACLU is asking whether civil immigration enforcement needs a shock device at all. "ICE spent the last year showing this country they are too quick to use force," said Jenn Rolnick Borchetta, deputy project director on policing at the ACLU, in a statement reported by The Verge. "Now they will be able to deploy electric shocks with the slight push of a button that maybe nobody else can see them do. Introducing gloves that can so easily be used to deliver terrible pain in encounters is a recipe for harm to the public."

The Associated Press, citing the notice, reports DHS is working on a response to press inquiries but offered "no immediate comment" on the purchase plan. The notice gives a delivery date and a spending ceiling. It does not say how many gloves, what training officers need, or what counts as justified use of force. What ICE has published, in effect, is a user guide that opens with the wearer's discretion. The track record of similar gloves in other agencies suggests how much that guarantee is worth.