Pilot program testing tasers in Ohio's prisons; may expand statewide

Yahoo

2 days ago

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — Ohio's correction officers could soon be armed with tasers.
'This is very rushed,' policy director at Ohio Justice and Policy Center Michaela Burriss said. 'De-escalation is about communication; de-escalation is about creating safe spaces.'
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According to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC), the conversation of arming corrections officers with tasers started in 2020. Research into the matter was put on pause due to the COVID-19 pandemic, then started again in 2024. In May of this year, two prisons started a pilot program to test the use of tasers; now ODRC wants to see the program expanded statewide.
'Over 78% of those currently housed in the department have committed a crime of violence in their lifetime,' an ODRC spokesperson wrote in a statement. 'This means that the inmates the staff supervise are more dangerous than they have been in the past, and we want our staff to have the tools to do their jobs safely.'
'There absolutely shouldn't be a statewide expansion when we have no idea how the pilot is going to turn out,' Burriss said.
How would the proposal work? This manual lays out what all must go into equipping correction officers with tasers. Officers must go through vendor approved training, and if a taser is in use, body cameras must also be in use. Unauthorized use includes someone who is already restrained and inmates younger than 14.
Burriss worries that the move is premature.
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'Weapons are not in prisons for a reason,' Burriss said, adding that the long-term effects of taser use have not been sufficiently studied.
'I don't have a lot of confidence that somebody isn't going to get extremely hurt or somebody isn't going to die, and that somebody may not even be the person who is incarcerated,' she said. 'Tasers are only going to beget the cycle of violence that leads to people being incarcerated in the first place.'
'[O]DRC's policy allows only those officers with direct interaction with the incarcerated population to carry a taser device,' the ODRC statement reads. 'This allows the managing officer (Warden), who knows that facility best, to identify those types of posts with a second approval process by the respective regional director to review and approve whether those posts identified shall be issued taser devices.'
State leaders said if ODRC says tasers in prisons are necessary, they are inclined to fund that endeavor in the state budget.
'It seems to me to be appropriate, but I'm also not an expert in terms of prisoner management and things like that,' Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman (R-Lima) said. 'But I don't, off the top of my head, have any opposition to that.'
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'I think that's a decision that should be made by the professionals in the field,' Gov. Mike DeWine said. 'I generally follow what their lead is, so that's about as far as I'm going to go on that.'
Right now, the state budget cuts funding to ODRC over the next two years – 3% in 2026 and 4% in 2027.
Burriss believes taxpayer dollars allotted to corrections should be spent in what she considers a more effective way.
'Our taxpayer money is better spent on things that we know do decrease violence in prisons and that will address those systemic problems like overcrowding and understaffing,' she said. 'Tasers are not going to rehabilitate somebody. They're not going to make somebody less likely to commit an act of violence and I think that's something we all want.'
The state budget must pass by the end of June.
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