Handcuffs
restraint devices
Handcuffs are restraint devices designed to secure an individual's wrists in proximity to each other. They comprise two parts, linked together by a chain, a hinge, or rigid bar. Each cuff has a rotating arm which engages with a ratchet that prevents it from being opened once closed around a person's wrist. 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.
Styles
Metal handcuffs
There are three main types of contemporary metal handcuffs: chain (cuffs are held together by a short chain), hinged (since hinged handcuffs permit less movement than a chain cuff, they are generally considered to be more secure), and rigid solid bar handcuffs. While bulkier to carry, rigid handcuffs permit several variations in cuffing. Hiatts Speedcuffs are rigid handcuffs used by most police forces in the United Kingdom. Both rigid and hinged cuffs can be used one-handed to apply pain-compliance/control techniques that are not workable with the chain type of cuff. 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.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Handcuffs” as restraint devices. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q15808. The Library of Congress control number is sh85058662. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Handcuffs” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.