LA County Jail to Field-Test Raytheon Pain Ray

[Panaconda]

A Raytheon spokeswoman declined to state the cost of the machine, but one deputy estimated just the hardware costs at least hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Authorities at Castaic jail poised to use Assault Intervention Device
By C.J. Lin, Staff Writer

Guards trying to break up fights between inmates at a Castaic jail will be armed with the hottest nonlethal weapon on the market next week.

The 7½-foot-tall Assault Intervention Device emits a focused, invisible ray that causes an unbearable heating sensation in its targets – hopefully stopping inmates from fighting or doing anything other than trying to get out of its way, sheriff's officials said.

The device, unveiled Friday at Pitchess Detention Center, will be mounted near the ceiling in a dormitory housing about 65 prisoners, according to Commander Bob Osborne of the Sheriff's Department Technology Exploration Program.

"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," Osborne said. "So that we have fewer injuries, fewer assaults, those kinds of things."

...

http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_15845458

From a 2008 report:

Pain Ray Test Subjects Exposed to ‘Unconscionable Risks’

Last fall, Nathan and I agreed to be guinea pigs in a demonstration of the Pentagon’s controversial "pain ray," a directed energy weapon that creates an intense burning sensation designed to repel a potential enemy.

We were told that the so-called Active Denial System, tested thousands of times, was all-but-harmless. But a newly-obtained accident report shows that just six months prior to our test, the weapon’s operators were dangerously undertrained — exposing test subjects, as one official puts it, "to unconscionable risks."

Not that anyone told us about those hazards when we volunteered in the second of two events that the Joint Nonlethal Weapons Directorate held for reporters to demonstrate — on the reporters — the safety and effectiveness of this newfangled weapon. All we had to do was sign a "release of liability" and a "general talent release" that "grants the U.S. Government the right to "use my name… in any matter and for any purpose whatsoever; and to do the same perpetually."

...

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2008/10/pain-ray-accide/

[qb]

1. How is this constitutional? BTW, it would be cheaper to just pull out their fingernails.

:sarcasm:

[HereSince1628]

2. Causes unbearable sensation of heating because

it _IS?_ cooking the target like a microwaved popcorn kernel?

And be sure to tell the operators this is a 'non-lethal' AID to behavioral control, so they'll be SURE to hold it on the target longer than needed just to give that additional 'educational' experience for the target.

[midnight]

3. K&R .

[ThomWV]

4. It is a Microwave Oven without the oven, the prisoners are human popcorn.