ABSTRACT

This chapter reviews the mainstream theories in policing and the literature around police use of force and projectile electric-shock weapons, arguing that, while they have advanced our understanding in multiple, complex ways, they are insufficiently attentive to technologies, the role they can play, and the way they can impact individual officers, police agencies, and the police role more generally. I start by discussing the limited literature around projectile electric-shock weapons—which focuses, almost exclusively, on the TASER brand—and the use of force more generally. I demonstrate that, focused as it is on human agency, the injury potential of different force options and police militarisation, it is largely inattentive to the role and agency of weapons technologies. In the second part of the chapter, I demonstrate that such limitations are also found in each of the main theories of policing, from macro approaches (consensus, conflict, and predatory policing approaches), to micro and ‘transformational’ (Reiner 2010) approaches. In sum, while the existing literature on TASER, the use of force and broader theoretical debates in policing can aide our understanding in many ways, it is often unable to adequately conceive of the full role, scope, and impacts of technologies such as less lethal weapons.