LANSING, Mich. (AP) - Michigan's prison system is crediting the introduction of Tasers for a drop in attacks on its employees.
The Michigan Department of Corrections issued the electronic stunning devices in five prisons in December 2011 and expanded the deployment system-wide last year.
The Lansing State Journal says a Michigan prison employee uses a Taser on a prisoner about twice a day. It says there have been 576 Taserings since Oct. 1, 2012.
The Corrections Department says prisoners attacked employees 579 times in 2012, down from 644 in 2011 and 688 in 2010.
Department spokesman Russ Marlan says Tasers let guards break up inmate fights without physically intervening. Kay Perry of the prisoner rights group Michigan CURE says there's too great a risk of guards abusing Tasers to allow them in prisons.
