The 72 weapons allocated to the district are in Dunedin and will be distributed to the region's police within the next two weeks.
Southern district operations manager Inspector Lane Todd said the Invercargill armed offenders squad (AOS) had already completed their one-day training session on using the stun guns, and the Dunedin AOS was to receive training today.
As soon as they receive the Tasers, they can start using them.
All sole, one-, two- and three-man station officers will be the next to be trained, and they will all be allocated a Taser.
Consequently, the Southland police area, with a large number of small rural stations, will receive the most Tasers (26), with Dunedin-Clutha getting 24, and 19 going to the Otago Rural area.
Three others are for use in training.
By the end of June, about 300 mainly AOS, sole-charge and front-line urban officers will be trained.
In central Dunedin, five Tasers will be available to front-line staff on each shift.
The stun guns will be issued to trained staff as they come on duty and locked in a safe in patrol cars.
They will only be used if permission from communications staff is given.
Tasers will be available for trained operators to use to make an arrest, in self-defence (or defence of others), to prevent an offender from escaping or to deter vicious animals.
Tasers were presented at people 132 times, but fired only 10 times in their first year of use.
Most people surrendered under threat of Tasering without the need for firing the weapon.
The weapons, which paralyse people with a 50,000-volt electrical pulse delivered through metal barbs, were introduced in Auckland City, Waitemata, Counties Manukau and Wellington police districts in December 2008, following a nine-month trial.
The national manager of operation services, Superintendent John Rivers, said he would expect the number of incidents where a Taser was fired to increase as they became more widely available.
All incidents involving a Taser are recorded in the same way as any employment of batons, pepper spray or dogs is recorded.
Each Taser also has a camera underneath the handgrip that records audio and films the weapon's use on offenders.
Only New Zealand and French agencies have made this "Tasercam" an integral part of the guns' implementation.
The information would be retained for evidential purposes as well as for training, plus to ensure Tasers were used appropriately, Insp Todd said.
The recordings would also provide public reassurance the weapons would be used safely, because recordings could be used by the Independent Police Complaints Authority when investigating, he said.
