If inmates of the Webster County Jail see a corrections officer reaching for a black glove, they had better start behaving.

Coming in contact with those gloves could be a truly shocking experience.

The gloves can deliver an electrical shock ranging from 210 volts to 320 volts. A corrections officer merely has to touch the inmate with the glove to deliver the voltage.

Those gloves sound like something from a comic book or science fiction movie, but they are very real. They are newest tools the jail staff has to control unruly inmates. Using the gloves is safer for the corrections officers, and the inmates. The officers don’t end up in a wrestling match with an inmate, which could injure both them and the inmate. And while the inmates get a healthy zap, they will not be getting hit by taser darts or anything else that would injure or incapacitate them.

These gloves are called the GLOVE, which stands for Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter.

The Webster County Jail is apparently the first in the state to use them.

The jail also recently received an E-band restrictor, which is an ankle band that can deliver a similar dose of voltage. It will be placed on inmates going to court or a doctor’s office. If the inmate tries to make a run for it or otherwise gets out of control, a corrections officer merely has to push a button on a remote to deliver the electricity.

We salute Webster County Jail Administrator Shawna Dencklau for thinking of innovative ways to maintain control of disruptive inmates in a way that is safe for jail staff and the inmates themselves.

Obtaining the gloves and E-band restrictor was made possible by a $2,300 grant from Webster County Crime Stoppers. That group saw the value in this equipment and donated the money that enabled the county to purchase it.