Body Armor

Deputy Sheriff Isaac Smith, the first law enforcement officer to lose his life in the line of duty, was fatally shot in 1792. Yet it was not until April 2,1931, that one of the first demonstrations of ballistic wear for the personal protection of law enforcement personnel was documented by Washington, D.C.'s Evening Star. Unfortunately, most ballistic-resistant designs of the time were neither effective nor practical for everyday police use.

Due to the dramatic rise in officer fatalities from handguns during the 1960s, the National Institute of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice, predecessor of the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), instituted a program to create lightweight body armor for police personnel. In the 1970s, government researchers Lester Shubin and Nicholas Montanarelli tested DuPont's new Kevlar® plastic fabric (invented to replace steel belting in radial tires) for its ballistic resistance potential. Kevlar® proved successful in repelling bullets and quickly became incorporated into an Army prototype developed in 1973.

Fabricated from seven layers of fabric, the Kevlar® vest was designed to protect police officers against bullet penetration and blunt trauma injuries incurred from their most common threats, the .38 special and .22 long rifle. In 1975, the vest succeeded in an extensive field test to assess its effectiveness and wearability by not interfering with professional duties, physical movement, or personal comfort. Moreover, it saved 18 officers' lives and ensured a 95% chance of survival if shot with a .38 caliber bullet at 800 feet/sec velocity.

Today, there are two major categories of body armor: ballistic-resistant and stab-(or puncture-) resistant. Stab-resistant armor is often worn by members of the corrections community to meet the unique knife threats these officers face on a daily basis. Ballistic-resistant armor is further divided into two main groups. Concealable soft body armor, worn routinely as undergarments by law enforcement officers in the line of duty, is designed for protection against handgun bullets. Nonconcealable or tactical body armor is generally a hard armor outer garment worn by Special Weapons and Tactics teams for protection against rifle and pistol bullets. Although models differ in fabric, design, features, construction, and assembly, ballistic-resistant garments are generally constructed from multiple layers of protective fabric in order to absorb and disperse the energy from a bullet's impact over the [Page 25]entire area of a vest to prevent penetration and reduce the harmful effects of blunt trauma.

Ballistic-resistant body armor is commonly referred to as “bulletproof.” However, neither concealable nor nonconcealable armor is designed to offer full protection against every caliber bullet at all velocities and ranges. Moreover, because most armor designs are vestlike in nature, much of an officer's body remains vulnerable to attack. Fortuitously, ballistic armor has also demonstrated nonballistic benefits in preventing serious, and potentially fatal, injury from automobile accidents and physical assault, and some protection against knives.

The NIJ's Ballistic Resistance of Personal Body Armor serves as the national standard for police professionals and industry manufacturers. It is accepted worldwide for establishing minimum performance requirements for personal body armor. Originated by the Office of Law Enforcement Standards of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and produced as part of the Law Enforcement and Corrections Standards and Testing Program, these standards are based on the laboratory testing and performance evaluation of representative samples supplied by manufacturers.

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