Non-lethal force
Non-lethal force is force which is not inherently likely to kill or cause great bodily injury to a living target. Note that "non-lethal force" generally has a significant risk of causing death: in this context "non-lethal" only means "not intended to kill". For this reason, two new terms, "less than lethal" and particularly "less-lethal", were coined and are now being used in place of "non-lethal" by many weapons manufacturers and law enforcement agencies (and even those who oppose their common use in riot control).A report prepared for the European Parliament classified non-lethal weapons as techniques of political control. In an appraisal of those techniques, the Omega Foundation recognized non-lethal crowd control weapons, prisoner control technology, interrogation technologies and surveillance technologies, including human recognition and tracking devices and global police and military telecommunications interceptions networks, as elements of a growing arsenal of non-lethal political technology that can pose a threat to civil liberties.
Weapons not designed as lethal instruments often nevertheless prove fatal. An estimate by the International Association of Chiefs of Police suggested at least 113 pepper spray related fatalities in the US, mostly from positional asphyxia. Amnesty International in 1997 released a report titled USA: Police use of pepper spray is tantamount to torture.
See also: police, deadly force, weapon, riot control agent
Examples
Outside Resources