Pain compliance is the use of painful stimulus to control or direct a person or animal. The stimulus can be manual (brute force, placing pressure on painful areas, or use of painful hyperextension or hyperflexion on joints), use tools such as a whip

Whip

A whip is a tool traditionally used by humans to exert control over animals or other people, through pain compliance or fear of pain, although in some activities whips can be used without use of pain, such as an additional pressure aid in dressage...

 or electroshock weapon, or use of chemical such as tear gas or pepper spray

Pepper spray

Pepper spray, also known as OC spray , OC gas, and capsicum spray, is a lachrymatory agent that is used in riot control, crowd control and personal self-defense, including defense against dogs and bears...

.

The purpose of pain compliance is to direct the actions of the subject, and to this end, the pain is lessened or removed when compliance is achieved. This provides incentive to the subject to carry out the action required.

Use in humans

The most common use in humans is as a law enforcement technique to assist with taking a suspect in to custody, control a suspect in custody or encourage action on behalf of a person who is passively resisting. In disciplined law enforcement, the use of pain compliance forms part of a use of force continuum

Use of force continuum

A use of force continuum is a standard that provides law enforcement officials & security officers with guidelines as to how much force may be used against a resisting subject in a given situation. In certain ways it is similar to the military rules of engagement...

 which will usually start with verbal warnings, before escalating measures.

The pain stimulus can be manual, using a pain compliance hold or can be through the use of weapons such as an electroshock weapon (taser). Pepper spray was swabbed onto the inside of the eyelids of protesters in California.

Pain compliance as part of an escalation of force policy normally presumes a rational adversary, but some altered states such as mental illness

Mental illness

A mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioral pattern generally associated with subjective distress or disability that occurs in an individual, and which is not a part of normal development or culture. Such a disorder may consist of a combination of affective, behavioural,...

, phencyclidine

Phencyclidine

Phencyclidine , commonly initialized as PCP and known colloquially as angel dust, is a recreational dissociative drug...

 and amphetamine

Amphetamine

Amphetamine or amfetamine is a psychostimulant drug of the phenethylamine class which produces increased wakefulness and focus in association with decreased fatigue and appetite.Brand names of medications that contain, or metabolize into, amphetamine include Adderall, Dexedrine, Dextrostat,...

 use, or extreme adrenaline may alter the subject's perception of pain or willingness to submit.

Like other forms of non-lethal force

Non-lethal force

Non-lethal weapons, also called less-lethal weapons, less-than-lethal weapons, non-deadly weapons, compliance weapons, or pain-inducing weapons are weapons intended to be less likely to kill a living target than are conventional weapons...

, such pain compliance strategies are not perfect and may be abused as a form of torture

Torture

Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...

, with plausible deniability

Plausible deniability

Plausible deniability is, at root, credible ability to deny a fact or allegation, or to deny previous knowledge of a fact. The term most often refers to the denial of blame in chains of command, where upper rungs quarantine the blame to the lower rungs, and the lower rungs are often inaccessible,...

. For this reason the use of pain compliance is often subject to explicit rules of engagement

Rules of engagement

Rules of Engagement refers to those responses that are permitted in the employment of military personnel during operations or in the course of their duties. These rules of engagement are determined by the legal framework within which these duties are being carried out...

 designed to prevent abuse and avoid conflict escalation

Conflict escalation

Conflict escalation describes the escalation of a conflict to a more destructive, confrontational, painful, or otherwise "less comfortable" level; in particular, it is concerned with how persons or forces can be controlled or subdued in conflict...

.

Use in animals

Pain compliance is used as a training aid in animals, with physical aids including the use of whip

Whip

A whip is a tool traditionally used by humans to exert control over animals or other people, through pain compliance or fear of pain, although in some activities whips can be used without use of pain, such as an additional pressure aid in dressage...

s and shock collar

Shock collar

The term shock collar is a term used in order to describe a family of training collars that deliver shocks of varying intensity and duration to the neck of a dog via a radio controlled electronic device...

s.