ABSTRACT
Sub-lethal weapons for law enforcement are now a lucrative business. They have gone from relatively cheap rubber bullets to directed energy devices such as the Silent Guardian, costing several million pounds. Much of the accelerated interest in using such technology has come from the US military’s take-up of ‘non-lethal doctrines’, particularly where they have been forced to fight mixed populations of civilians and combatants. Current variants include systems based on optical, microwave, electro-stun, kinetic energy, micromillimetre wave, malodorant and bio-chemical effects, and on flight stabilised capture nets.
