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Handcuffing small-wristed individuals

Every officer, at one point in time, has come across that individual that the handcuffs would not fit on properly. We all remember the training we were given. “Place the handcuff in the handcuffing groove….” Handcuffing is something we take for granted on a daily basis. The malnourished, female crack addict or the 11-year-old child will not be secured in a traditional set of handcuffs or by most traditional handcuffing techniques.

I have field tested the following techniques for small-wristed subjects and would like to share them with my brother and sister officers:

Place the first handcuff on one of the subject’s wrists, but only have the first tooth lock into the pawl. Take the second handcuff and interlace the bow (single strand) into the locked handcuff to remove the remaining slack and properly lock down the bows on the two handcuffs. Be aware that this does place some stress on the swivel of a set of chained handcuffs.

An alternative that requires two handcuffs can be used if one has hinged handcuffs and allows for proper alignment of the cuffs. Place one set of cuffs onto your small-wristed subject leaving slack in your cuffs so you can interlock a second pair of cuffs onto the first set. You will end up with one set of handcuffs on your subject with a second set of cuffs locked into your first set. Take out the slack in your cuffs.

There are many other creative ways for cuffing small-wristed subjects that may work also -- using one cuff on both wrists, cuffing above the elbows, or using disposable polymer based cuffs -- but the two described above utilize the cuffs in the manner in which they were originally designed to be utilized.

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