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You’re absolutely correct. The subject’s knuckles should be facing each other instead of the palms and fingertips facing each other, and the thumbs should be pointed away from the body, not toward it. What’s depicted in the photo demonstrates how easy it is for a subject to manipulate his or her hands in any way where it’s possible to reach a hidden key, a hidden piece of metal, a hidden wire or any other object that is close enough to be used to either unlock the handcuffs, or even to reach a weapon or other object that can be used as a weapon, or to grab ahold of an officer or a hostage. With the palms facing inboard the way the photo shows, a subject has much more control if he or she is limber enough to move the wrists down below the feet and bring the hands to the front of the body. With the palms facing away from each other, even if a person has the agility and dexterity to get the hands in front of the body, it’s much more difficult to make fists, grab another person, manipulate a weapon, etc. On the topic of hidden keys or hidden objects that can be used as keys, or as weapons, the expectation of many people is, “the officer has already searched the subject either just prior to or just after putting on the handcuffs, and would have found any hidden object.” That only covers what is supposed to happen prior to or just after applying the handcuffs. In reality, there are many situations where the handcuffs are applied, and an immediate search is not made, or it is not thorough enough, or even if the search is thorough, the subject can get near to any object close enough to pick up without the officer seeing it happen. Because of these breaches of proper techniques, there are many officers who are dead or injured today, or innocent civilians killed or injured, or escapes that have taken place, because of unexpected things that happened during or after the handcuffs were applied, and someone assumed that the subject could not or would not do anything, could not or would not be able to do anything with his or her hands.
P. S.: ThriftyMad; you truly deserve Asker’s Pick, not only for having the first answer but for having the first correct answer. However, the second answer, which came from Honey Dew, wins the prize . . . just because. I’m sorry, and I’ll have to catch you on the rebound.
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Hey, wait! Don’t move a muscle; I’ve booked a flight, I’m on my way to the airport, and I will be there as soon as I can! Please don’t start without me!
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Thriftymaid 