Cops Love ICE’s New Shock Gloves. Parents Want Them Out of Schools.

Early August saw the Department of Homeland Security (ICE) announcing a $20 million investment in electric-shock gloves, produced by Compliant Technologies. These handheld devices deliver a painful electric charge upon direct contact with exposed skin. Police departments, jails, and school resource officers have utilized the gloves for years, although human rights groups like Amnesty International deem them "readily misused for torture."

Police officers, discussing the product on Compliant Technologies’ YouTube channel, asserted that the gloves are advantageous as they "less conducive to lawsuits" and can inflict pain without causing lasting marks or scars. Known as the GLOVE, or Generated Low-Output Voltage Emitter, the device is already in use in some public schools.

Within Omaha, Nebraska, 29 out of 34 school police officers have received training to employ the GLOVE, and twice within the past year, officers shocked students with these devices. Omaha requested 40 pairs of the gloves for around $66,000 in 2025, making ICE's $20 million purchase capable of acquiring at least 12,000 pairs of shock gloves.

The Omaha City Council unanimously endorsed the purchase, but concerns have arisen as the gloves face increased scrutiny. Parents and students are now questioning the implementation of the shock gloves in their schools. School board member Gini Magnuson expressed her disgust at learning that her school has been used as a testing ground for a new law enforcement technology.

The GLOVE’s most recent user manual advises against using the device on "small children." Despite the warning, Omaha is not the only school district employing shock gloves. Compliant Technologies frequently showcases its products at School Resource Officer conferences across the nation, including the Texas and Mississippi Associations of School Resource Officers’ annual "school safety" conferences in July.

One high school student, Lux Tipton, voiced his displeasure at the school board meeting, stating, "I wish the adults in the room would actually just pay attention to what the students are saying, and hopefully understand that hurting students, and using weapons against them, is not what teaching is about, and it’s not what school is supposed to be about."

While students, parents, and politicians condemn the use of these weapons, White House border czar Tom Homan supports their use. "It’s another device to help someone get compliant when they are not," Homan stated in an interview on Fox & Friends. The Department of Homeland Security may distribute thousands of pairs of the gloves as early as March 2027.