Office of Law Enforcement Technology Commercialization(OLETC), 316 Washington Ave, Wheeling, WV 26003

A -- SOURCES SOUGHT SOL 0989-095 DUE 040998 POC James A. Ball OLETC -- 703-866-4740, Lance Miller NLECTC -- 800-248-2742, Alim Fatah NIST OLES -- 301-975-2757 WEB: Office of Law Enforcement Technology Commercialization and the Office of Law Enforcement Standards, http://www.nttc.edu/oletc.html, http://www.nlectc.org/oles/. E-MAIL: Project Manager, OLETC, jball@erols.com. Description: National Institute of Justice Protective Glove Compliance Program Summary This notice announces a protocol for the testing of protective gloves for law enforcement and corrections personnel. The test protocols are provided in draft form for industry comment and details of the program and the future test program are provided. Background The Office of Law Enforcement Technology Commercialization (OLETC), The National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center -- Rockville (NLECTC-R) and the Office of Law Enforcement Standards at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, in support of the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), announce a program to meet the needs of the Law Enforcement and Corrections community for better protective gloves as requested by the Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Advisory Council (LECTAC). The need has been defined as three types of gloves which are detailed later in this announcement. The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) Protective Glove Compliance Program is managed as a team effort with the participation of the Office of Law Enforcement (OLETC), the Office of Law Enforcement Standards (OLES) and the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center -- Rockville (NLECTC -- R) Objective The objective of this program is to establish a standard test and evaluation program that will obtain laboratory evaluations and field organization feedback on the perfromance of existing products and identify the needs for any necessary development efforts. NIJ intends to establish a testing program for verification of performance against established protocols for protective gloves. The results of this effort will be provided to the NLECTC-R for dissemination to the Law Enforcement and Corrections (LEC) community and the glove industry. The Protocol will be employed to ensure that future product performance and quality reflect manufacturer's claims; this program will be established and managed by NLECTC-R. The protective types are defined generally as: Type A -- Basic Health Protective Glove Use: General protection against health hazzards in dealing with field interrogation, apprehension, transportation, incarceration of suspects/prisoners as well as crime scene investigation and evidence gathering. Type B -- The Cut Resistant Glove Use: General protection against cut and/or stab hazzards in dealing woth field interrogation, apprehension, and incareration of suspects/prisoners as well as crime scene investigation and evidence gathering in hostile environments where sharp and razor-edge objects may pose a threat. Type C -- The Puncture Resistant Glove Use: General protection against puncture by needles or pointed objects such as ice picks in dealing with field interrogation, apprehension and incarceration of suspects/prisoners as well as crime scene investigation and evidence gathering in hostile environments where pointed and needle shaped objects may pose a threat. These gloves are intendedfor use while frisking or patting down suspects/prisoners. Test Protocols Interested manufacturers and testing laboratories are invited to review the draft test protocols that haved been developed. Suggestions on controlling test costs are also requested as are means to make the test criteria meaningful to the users in the LEC community. A copy of the draft Protective Protocol may be obtained from: Office of Law Enforcment Standards National Institute of Standards and Technology Bldg 225, Rm A-323 Gaithersburg, MD 20899 Requests may be made by Fax to 301-948-0978 or e-mail to aafatah@mailserver2.nist.gov Future Actions Once industry responses have been received, appropriate modifications will be made to the draft protocols, and a subsequent CBD announcement will invite manufacturers to submit sample materials and glove products for testing against the protocols. The testing will be for the purpose of validating the protocols and providing feedback to the developers and manufacturers on theperformance of their materials and products. In addition, a subsequent CBD announcement will invite testing laboratories to submit a proposal for the validation testing of the protocol on an established number of glove models Following validation of the test protocols, NLECTC-R will provide industry guidance on the establishment of a protective glove-testing program. (0069)

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