I’ve just been asked about academic resources analyzing non-lethal weapons. I recommend Nick Lewer [Dr.Lewer was once my undergraduate tutor] and Neil Davison of the Bradford Non-Lethal Weapons Research Project, see, for example, The Contemporary Development of “Non-Lethal” Weapons[PDF]. Another academic source? Try Steve Wright [Praxis]:
The horror of images of deaths caused by Western armies in military operations, designed to maintain peace and security, has led to the development of new arms that are intended to paralyse, not destroy. Yet for all this seductive rhetoric, so-called “non-lethal” arms have the potential to increase the level of violence, spawning ever more advanced techniques of repression. And if democratic countries let their arms manufacturers develop these techniques, they will be exported to places less concerned about brutalising their populations.