When Sir Robert Peel founded London’s Metropolitan Police in 1829, the wooden “truncheon” was a standard piece of equipment. As much a show of authority as a method of control, the truncheon or “baton” was adopted in the United States in the mid-19th century.
The wooden baton served as the primary tool for control, deterrence and self-defense – designed to incapacitate rather than kill. That positioning makes it one of the first purpose-issued law enforcement tools that fit today’s definition of “less-lethal.”
The intent of the baton to show authority became particularly stark during the protests and civil unrest in the 1960s and 1970s. Images of Alabama state troopers using batons to beat civil rights marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma in 1965, Chicago police using batons against anti-Vietnam war protestors in 1968 and National Guardsmen confronting Kent State University students with batons in 1970 have all left an indelible mark on the American memory. Even as far away as Northern Ireland and South Africa, the baton became a symbol of government suppression against civil resistance.
The evolution of the baton
Notwithstanding the cultural baggage, through the ’80s the straight wooden baton was still very effective and a useful tool. However, the bulkiness and inconvenience of the baton banging against an officer’s leg on patrol or in the middle of a foot pursuit meant it often got left behind in the patrol vehicle.
The side-handle baton – introduced in the 1970s – required too much training to be effective. Agencies gave officers annual training only to find that six months down the road, officers were a “walking liability” because they couldn’t remember the various methods to use the side-handle baton properly; therefore officers resorted to gross motor skills and used it like a straight stick. It was also too cumbersome to wear.
Then on March 1,1991, officers with Los Angeles Police Department were caught on video cameras using their batons to repeatedly and excessively beat Rodney King. The video – captured by a bystander – became an infamous representation of police brutality and sparked nationwide outrage.
In the wake of the Rodney King incident, many departments shied away from using batons altogether – worried both about its perception as a tool of abuse and a symbol of oppression.
A better baton backfires
Within a few years, batons fell out of favor and conducted electrical weapons – better known by their commercial name, TASER – were widely adopted as a less-lethal alternative (although their effectiveness and lethality have come into question in recent years).
Although the baton serves its purpose, attempts to soften its image as well as make the baton easier for police officers to carry had an opposite effect than intended.
Batons manufactured in the past 25 years have been designed to be primarily convenient rather than effective. Developed in the 1980s and 1990s, expanding, telescoping batons were compact, easy to carry and quickly extendable with a flick of the wrist.
Unfortunately, because of their lighter weight and hollow design, many expandable batons deliver poor kinetic energy, often requiring multiple strikes to bring a noncompliant individual under control. To the untrained civilian eye, multiple strikes from a less-forceful baton can look like excessive force, playing into public misconceptions about police brutality.
The less-effective batons also require more strikes and greater manual force than the heavy truncheons of old. Today’s officers lack confidence in the expandable baton as a tool and administrators perceive them as a liability rather than an asset. In fact, many agencies have removed expandable batons from the duty belt, fearing a long baton altercation that may go viral in a society where images can evoke outrage and immediate perceptions often matter more than facts or nuance.
These misperceptions of the baton’s effectiveness and utility have become outdated with the development of a new baton design that marries the best qualities of a light, convenient expandable baton – and an effective one.
Energy in motion
The first generation of expandable batons had the primary weight or mass of the baton in the handle rather than in the striking area of the baton.
The Peacekeeper Rapid Containment Baton (RCB) alters the traditional design by redistributing the weight of the baton from the handle portion to the distal half – or the striking area of the baton.
Though the Peacekeeper RCB has a larger-diameter handle and expandable tubes, and is neither big nor heavy – rather, it’s “nose” heavy. “When one holds our baton by its grip and holds any other competitor’s baton backward, no one can tell the difference in weight,” said Phil Tanzini, director of operations for Peacekeeper Products, the manufacturer of the Peacekeeper RCB.
“Putting the weight in the periphery of an arc equates to more kinetic energy transfer or ‘stopping power’ with fewer strikes, rather than multiple strikes and surface welts which are developed from improperly weighted batons,” said Tanzini. “The redistributed weight design gives the officer a more competitive edge in a confrontation, regardless of size or gender.”
Since the Peacekeeper requires less effort to achieve higher impact, it gives new meaning to the term “force multiplier.”
The ‘one and done’ baton
The Peacekeeper RCB is dubbed the “one and done” baton because it rarely requires more than one to two strikes to stop a violent threat.
Even better than minimizing the number of strikes is to avoid the need altogether. When the officer expands the Peacekeeper RCB, it sounds like a shotgun being racked. This sound is often a sufficient deterrent to gain subject compliance.
“When it’s expanded, the subject hears and sees the authoritative action of the Peacekeeper Baton and usually chooses to submit,” said Tanzini. “This is the best-case scenario for all parties involved. We increase officer safety, reduce injury to the perpetrator and minimize any excessive use of force.”
Efficient in the field, efficient on the budget
Less lethal products come in an array of technologies, but each has their logistic and budgetary considerations.
CEWs have proven to be extremely costly due to the necessity of continual purchases of probes, training cartridges, batteries and continual updates.
Less-lethal projectile rounds require a continual inventory to manage. Even OC requires a continual inventory to manage as well as monitoring for expired product.
The Peacekeeper RCB continues to be a cost effective less-lethal option because there are no batteries, probes, required updates, ballistics or canisters to continually purchase, track and manage. Peacekeeper RCB also comes with a lifetime warranty, meaning only one baton is necessary for the whole career of each officer. This single expense is less than $200 per officer.
With the need for effective, dependable and durable equipment in the law enforcement profession, the Peacekeeper RCB has also earned its place as a cost effective, less-lethal option.
