Protective Gloves

Updated: April 24, 2007

In response to a request from the Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Advisory Council (LECTAC) to assist the law enforcement and corrections community in acquiring better protective gloves, a team consisting of representatives from the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center (NLECTC), the Office of Law Enforcement Standards (OLES) and the Office of Law Enforcement Technology Commercialization (OLETC) was formed to develop minimum performance standards and a testing program for protective gloves.

The team reviewed the major requirements for protective gloves and prepared a survey for the law enforcement and corrections community to help validate and prioritize the requirements. The result of the survey led the team to select pathogenic protection, cut resistance, puncture resistance, tactility, dexterity and affordability as the primary criteria for evaluation and comparison. The team also consulted with leading companies in the protective garment materials industry to determine the state-of-the-art in protective glove technology.

The team reviewed existing standards and test methods that could be adopted for testing protective gloves, and selected the best available standards for application. However, the team had an ongoing concern that the existing standards for cut and puncture resistance would not represent the "real world" threat facing law enforcement in a meaningful manner. This concern led the team to reevaluate the draft standard and they determined that it would be better to provide a set of standard test protocols that would enable the user community to compare the performance of protective gloves based on test data provided. The team has adapted the draft standard to create NIJ Test Protocol 99-114 Test Protocol for Comparative Evaluation of Protective Gloves for Law Enforcement and Corrections Applications, published in June 1999.

NIJ and NLECTC have used this protocol to establish a voluntary comparative testing program for protective gloves and to provide data on each of the priority requirements in a comparative report that will enable law enforcement and corrections professionals to choose a product based on the test data. This comparative data will enable the law enforcement and corrections community to make better choices for the best combination of characteristics vs. price for all gloves tested. One laboratory (TRI/Austin, Inc., located in Austin, Texas) is currently approved to perform this testing.

In spring 2000, protective glove manufacturers were invited to submit models of protective gloves for testing in accordance with the requirements of NIJ Test Protocol 99-114. Nine manufacturers submitted a total of 28 glove models to be tested. These gloves were tested between September 2000 and April 2001 at approved test laboratories. The results of this testing have been published in an NLECTC bulletin which is available to interested parties on request. All glove models tested since the publication of the bulletin will be posted on this Web site in the Results of Comparative Evaluation of Protective Gloves for Law Enforcement and Corrections Applications.

Contact:

NLECTC-National
Alex Sundstrom, Testing Coordinator
rsundstrom@nlectc.org
(800) 248-2742 or (301) 519-5060

Office of Law Enforcement Standards (OLES)
Alim Fatah, Program Manager, Chemical Systems and Materials
alim.fatah@nist.gov
(301) 975-2757