Revealed: the ‘less lethal’ weapons Australian police don’t want you to know about
The Guardian
Overall Assessment
The article investigates police use of less lethal weapons in Australia with strong sourcing and contextual depth. It raises accountability concerns through expert testimony and legal cases, while including official justifications. The framing leans slightly toward advocacy through selective emphasis and emotionally charged language, but factual reporting remains robust.
"It just felt like razor blades in my eyes"
Appeal to Emotion
Headline & Lead 60/100
The headline and lead emphasize secrecy and danger, using emotionally resonant language that may tilt toward advocacy rather than neutral reporting.
✕ Loaded Adjectives: The headline uses the phrase 'don’t want you to know about', which frames the revelation as a deliberate concealment by police, implying secrecy and potential wrongdoing. This phrasing is emotionally charged and suggests a cover-up without qualifying that this is the reporter's interpretation.
"Revealed: the ‘less lethal’ weapons Australian police don’t want you to know about"
✕ Loaded Adjectives: The lead paragraph opens with a strong quote — 'These weapons can kill people' — which sets a tone of danger and alarm. While the quote is attributed, its placement as the opening line gives it outsized prominence, potentially shaping reader perception before context is provided.
"‘These weapons can kill people’"
Language & Tone 75/100
The tone blends factual reporting with emotionally resonant language and rhetorical skepticism, particularly toward official terminology.
✕ Scare Quotes: The article uses the term 'less lethal' in scare quotes throughout, signaling skepticism about the label. This rhetorical choice implies the weapons are more dangerous than officially acknowledged.
"‘less lethal’"
✕ Sympathy Appeal: Phrases like 'don’t want you to know about' and descriptions such as 'thick with chemicals' and 'lifelong scars' evoke concern and moral unease, appealing to reader emotion.
"They get powder all over the ground but then they might roll out another weapon that’ll agitate the powder and put it back in the air"
✕ Appeal to Emotion: The article includes direct quotes from affected individuals — 'It just felt like razor blades in my eyes' — which personalize harm and heighten emotional impact.
"It just felt like razor blades in my eyes"
✕ Editorializing: Despite emotional elements, the article largely avoids editorializing and presents claims with attribution, maintaining a factual backbone even when highlighting risks.
Balance 90/100
Strong sourcing from diverse, named experts and stakeholders, including official and critical perspectives, enhances credibility and balance.
✓ Comprehensive Sourcing: The article includes multiple expert voices — medical researchers, criminologists, legal advocates, and weapons specialists — from credible institutions like Physicians for Human Rights and Omega Research Foundation, enhancing authority.
"Rohini Haar, a medical adviser at Physicians for Human Rights who has researched their health impacts on protesters around the world."
✓ Viewpoint Diversity: It includes viewpoint diversity by quoting police spokespersons, officers, and official policy documents, not just critics. This includes justifications for weapon deployment and oversight claims.
"A Victoria police spokesperson said the force “has stringent processes in place” around the use of crowd control equipment"
✓ Proper Attribution: It uses named sources throughout — researchers, lawyers, protesters — rather than vague attributions, and clearly distinguishes between direct evidence and claims.
"Peter O’Brien, of O’Brien Criminal and Civil Solicitors, often works on police cases. He says he has growing concerns about OC being increasingly “used as a tool for enforcing compliance”."
Story Angle 70/100
The story is framed as an exposé of concealed police weaponry and accountability gaps, prioritizing critical perspectives over operational context.
✕ Narrative Framing: The story is framed as a 'reveal' of hidden weapons, suggesting police secrecy. This narrative arc positions the journalist as uncovering concealed truths, which may oversimplify complex operational and safety considerations.
"Revealed: the ‘less lethal’ weapons Australian police don’t want you to know about"
✕ Framing by Emphasis: The article emphasizes harm, legal action, and lack of transparency, centering the perspective of medical experts and legal advocates. While police voices are included, the dominant narrative is one of risk and accountability failure.
"Legal claims and settlements against police for excessive use of force at protests are on the rise"
✕ Episodic Framing: It avoids reducing the issue to a simple conflict frame, instead presenting a systemic critique of oversight, data collection, and weapon proliferation across multiple states and agencies.
Completeness 85/100
The article offers substantial background, global comparisons, and systemic trends, enhancing understanding beyond isolated incidents.
✓ Contextualisation: The article provides extensive context on the global use of less lethal weapons, citing injuries, deaths, and medical research from the US and other countries. This helps situate the Australian case within a broader pattern of health risks.
"After tracking injuries globally to the head and eyes caused by these projectiles, Haar has concluded there is no role for projectiles in crowd control."
✓ Contextualisation: It includes data on usage frequency, contracts, and legal settlements, giving readers a sense of scale and institutional behavior over time. The mention of rising Taser deployments and lack of disaggregated protest-specific data adds depth.
"Data obtained by Guardian Australia under freedom of information laws show that in NSW, the number of times Tasers are drawn or deployed has more than doubled in five years."
✓ Contextualisation: The article acknowledges the official rationale for weapon use — officer safety and de-escalation — through direct quotes from police, providing balance to the critical narrative.
"The level of equipment deployed is commensurate with the risk likely to be encountered by our members."
Police are portrayed as untrustworthy due to secrecy and lack of transparency in weapon use and data suppression
[loaded_adjectives], [scare_quotes], [narrative_framing], [framing_by_emphasis]
"In Victoria, police have refused to publicly provide the make and model of their rubber bullets and other weapons even to the state’s parliamentarians due to “operational and community safety considerations”."
Police use of less lethal weapons is framed as ineffective and potentially counterproductive for crowd control
[framing_by_emphasis], [contextualisation]
"They’re not a good [tool] for disbursement of a crowd because they create chaos,” she says. “It actually creates a really unsafe environment."
Civilians at protests are framed as being placed in danger by indiscriminate use of less lethal weapons
[sympathy_appeal], [appeal_to_emotion], [contextualisation]
"It just felt like razor blades in my eyes,” he told the court."
Legal accountability mechanisms are framed as undermined by non-disclosure agreements and lack of public data
[framing_by_emphasis], [episodic_framing]
"Legal claims and settlements against police for excessive use of force at protests are on the rise, lawyers say, but there is no public collection of this data and often the details are kept from public view due to non-disclosure agreements."
Protesters and affected communities are framed as excluded from safety protections and subjected to disproportionate force
[sympathy_appeal], [framing_by_emphasis]
"They’re bringing their kids along and seeing these police fully kitted up with guns and grenades and having to explain … what’s going on,” Logan says. “This is the new normal.”"
The article investigates police use of less lethal weapons in Australia with strong sourcing and contextual depth. It raises accountability concerns through expert testimony and legal cases, while including official justifications. The framing leans slightly toward advocacy through selective emphasis and emotionally charged language, but factual reporting remains robust.
An investigation into Australian police use of less lethal weapons reveals limited public transparency, with state forces withholding details on equipment and usage. Medical experts and legal advocates raise concerns about injury risks and accountability, while police cite operational safety and proportionality. Data shows increasing deployment of Tasers and chemical irritants, with some weapons linked to serious injuries and legal claims.
The Guardian — Other - Crime
Based on the last 60 days of articles
The Guardian
No related content