Handcuffs
Without a key, handcuffs cannot be removed without specialist knowledge, and a handcuffed person cannot move their wrists more than a few centimetres or inches apart, making many tasks difficult or impossible.
Handcuffs are frequently used by law enforcement agencies worldwide to prevent suspected criminals from escaping from police custody.
Various accessories are available to improve the security or increase the rigidity of handcuffs, including boxes that fit over the chain or hinge and can themselves be locked with a padlock.
In 1933 the Royal Canadian Mounted Police used a type called "Mitten Handcuffs" to prevent criminals from being able to grab an object like the officer's gun.
Disposable restraints could be considered to be cost-inefficient; they cannot be loosened, and must be cut off to permit a restrained subject to be fingerprinted, or to attend to bodily functions.
However, aforementioned usage means that cheap handcuffs are available in situations where steel ones would normally lie unused for long times.
Some models consist of elliptically contoured cuffs so that they widely adapt to the anatomy of the ankle, minimizing pressure on the Achilles' tendon.
In a few rare cases, hog-tied persons lying on their stomachs have died from positional asphyxia, making the practice highly controversial, and leading to its being severely restricted, or even completely banned, in many localities.
When being placed in standard legcuffs, the prisoner will still have the possibility to manage normal steps and can therefore walk independently, but is prevented from running.
Some prisoners being transported from custody to outside locations, for appearances at court, to medical facilities, etc., will wear handcuffs augmented with a belly chain.
Handcuffs with double locks have a detent which when engaged stops the cuff from ratcheting tighter to prevent the wearer from tightening them.
As most people's hands are larger than their wrists, the first method was much easier before the invention of modern ratchet cuffs, which can be adjusted to a variety of sizes.
This can lead to awkward or painful positions depending on how the handcuffs were applied, and typically requires a good amount of flexibility.
It can also be done from a standing position, where, with some degree of effort, the handcuffed hands are slid around the hips and down the buttocks to the feet; then sliding each foot up and over the cuffs.
This is because Kazuyoshi Miura, who had been arrested on suspicion of the murder of his wife, brought a successful case to court arguing that being pictured in handcuffs implied guilt, and had prejudiced the trial.
[6] Similarly, in France, a law prohibits media from airing images of people in handcuffs, or otherwise restrained, before they have been convicted by a court.
[7][8] Also in Italy the Code of criminal procedure prohibits the publication of images of people deprived of personal liberty while they are handcuffed or subjected to other means of physical coercion.
[9] In Hong Kong, people being arrested and led away in handcuffs are usually given the chance by the policemen to have their heads covered by a black cloth bag.
Handcuffs are familiar enough for the word to be used in metaphors, e.g.: In the 'handcuffs gesture' the arms are crossed at the wrists in front of the chest, to represent being handcuffed.
