clipped from: www.abc.net.au   
Dani Cooper

News analysis The continuing rollout of electric stun-guns to Australian police raises concerns that Indigenous Australians will be over-represented as targets of the controversial technology.


taser X26

Academics also say that research into the physical harm these weapons inflict is inadequate because the guns are tested on healthy people in controlled environments.


Front-line police officers in Western Australian and the Northern Territory are now being issued with the stun-guns, known as tasers.


Tasers, which deliver up to 50,000-volt electrical pulses over 5 seconds to immobilise people, are also due to be introduced across Queensland police services from July

In South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria, tasers are restricted to use by special response teams

The latest three jurisdictions to adopt the tasers have Australia's highest Aboriginal populations

Professor Chris Cunneen

says Indigenous Australians are always over-represented as the victims of new public-order policing policy