#full restraints

[male-us-prison-experience]

This is a rather rare kind of pic: it shows an 23 inmate of Indian County Jail, Florida, incarcerated for the period of a bit more than a year, transported to hospital. It's unknown what medical treatment he's been admitted for. Nor is it clear what the cords extending to his right arm are for.

What is clear, however, is that he's kept shackled in the hospital bed. His wrists are clearly visible in handcuffs, which are in turn attached to the D-ring of a leather belt around his waist: one of the usual ways to restrain prisoners during transport. He isn't liberated from it because he is a patient now. Apparently it is also self-evident that he had to keep his prison uniform on, in this case the standard orange jumpsuit widely used in prisons.

Is he in his restraints lying alone in a room? Or does he have to share a dormitory with other patients, with free civilians all around him, he himself being so clearly recognizable as a prison inmate?

It's also unknown whether he is also—as is customary in prisoner transport, during which the leather belt with handcuffs maske up a standard feature—fully restrained, and therefore wearing leg-irons too. If the blurry photo in the prison car below shows him on the way to the hospital, he likely had to keep them on in bed as well. Incidentally, they are less of a hindrance than the handcuffs, which significantly restrict his freedom of movement in this way.

[bullringmen]

US Prison Experience

This will become a new site about one of my greatest phantasies: to experience a real American prison from the inside. After being transported to a huge state penitentiary, surrounded by barbed wire, walls and moats, and the obligatory stripsearch at arrival, barred cells, serious shackles, rattling chains and prison stripes are waiting - allways secured in full restraints: that's the way i like it!

[male-us-prison-experience]

WELCOME IN MY PRISON - THE ONLY ONE THAT OFFERS ALL PLEASURES OF ALL AMERICAN PENITENTIARIES TOGETHER

After that fatal car crash, causing serious traffic victims, it always starts with arrest and being handcuffed at your back. Then you're driven to the police station. There follows the intake, the body search, the mugshot, the inevitable alcohol test and finally the finger prints.

As the test is positive your brandnew prison uniform, a simple nice black and white striped jumpsuit, to be closed with just six shiny snap buttons at the front, is already waiting for you, one of the kind you will have to wear from now on for many years to come - as is the barred bare cell with just a bed of cold steel, a stool made of the same stuff and a toilet, to spend your first night locked up and think all over....

Your beautiful new villain suit will only be taken off from now on when you have to shower, together with other prisoners. You better prepare yourself for that too: in prison we don't do privacy. The first time you will hesitate to undress in the presence of others just as much as that shy new inmate on the right, but that will soon be over, i promise you.

You soon will learn to wear your striking prison stripes always and everywhere. No separate trousers and shirt for you anymore, just a jumpsuit. And you soon will learn that you have to dress yourself properly once you're out of your bed , so to button up that jumpsuit always and everywhere completely, all six snaps up to the last one just under your chin. If not, the police officers will learn you to do so.

You also soon will get used to the fact that this is just how you will look henceforth, that your visiting family will see you dressed like this. No, there will not be any exceptions to that rule in the future. You soon will discover that your prison uniform has only one small pocket, on your left chest, and none further down as your pants once had. As you will never need cash money in the future again, this is sufficient for a pair of glasses, or perhaps a handkerchief. After all, the fewer pockets your jumpsuit possesses, the smaller the risk of any contraband.

Yes, from this moment on wearing solid steel handcuffs will become nearly inevitable as soon as you are somewhere outside your own cell. Safety comes first - at the police station they have their experience with new prisoners who suddenly go crazy and thus become violent.

A few days later you're already on your way to court for trial, in your new prison stripes clearly contrasting to the accompanying officers in their grey uniforms. Of course you're already since you left your cell in full restraints, shuffling along with difficulty in your uneasy leg irons, while your wrists in handcuffs are fixed to the frontal D-ring of a thick leather belt around your waist, with which the jailers lead you with firm a grip like some wild dog on the leash to the dock to get sentenced....

After your perp-walk in front of the eager local press and the curious public you enter the courtroom, where your lawyer pleads in vain for a conditional sentence on the grounds of mitigating circumstances. But the facts are clear and the sentence of the judge therefore is too.

You will have to spend many years in prison - which one, you don't hear yet. The next days, or perhaps weeks, you will stay in your cell at the local jail again. When you move back from the courtroom to the exit of the court-house, the sound of the rattling of your leg-irons, each time when the connecting chain hits the stone floor tiles of the corridor, sounds more ominous than ever. You will get used to them...

And now, first back to the county jail. Now you've been sentenced, you're aware that you indeed will have to wear this black and white striped prison jumpsuit the next years. And yes, because of that, on your way out of the courthouse those damned handcuffs also stay on.

Outside the prison van is already waiting for you. No, there is no chance to escape your fate. Too much police officers around, apart from your shackles - and your prison stripes, that will betray you. There is only one choice for you: to obey to the law and step inside.

And yes, this time, on your way back, you're not the only one in the prison van. As small as it is, there is space enough for two - or more...

Back in your cell at the county jail you've just to wait, till on some very early morning in the next days or weeks you're suddenly awakened and taken out for transport. The handcuffs and leg-irons you have to wear during the next hours already are waiting outside your cell. This time even a black box is added to your handcuffs, fixing them in an immovable way to the belly-chain padlocked at your back.

Outside, the special prison bus is already waiting for you. Inside that van, behind the driver's cabin, there is a lockable compartment for you and your fellow inmates, with bars on the windows. For the rest there are only very basic chairs on a steel floor. Now, you have a very long ride ahead of you, during which you will stay fully restrained the entire time. At no point will your shackles come off, that's strictly forbidden, not even allowed when you are given food and drink on the way, or have to piss, or when a short stop is made to pick up a couple of recently convicted inmates, already shackled, at the next county jail.

If you are unlucky, if you are considered a flight risk, you will not only have to wear the hand and foot cuffs that have already been put on you in advance, but you might also be chained to your place for the entire ride, presumably with your legs to a ring in the floor. As you can see, the necessary extra cuffing-equipment for this is already present in the bus in enough amounts to do so just behind the driver's seat.

It's a long drive of many hours from the small jail in your own county town to the huge isolated prison complex in the middle of nowhere. Then suddenly your new home for the next years comes into sight. The wires, the walls, the watch towers, al those frightening forbidding structures you can watch now for a couple of minutes through the windows of the prison van from the outside before it enters, make you immediately realize: once inside, there will be no way out.

And when the prison gate opens and the van finally drives into the court yard, you already catch a glimpse of the other inhabitants, all wearing exactly the same black and white striped prison uniform as you. You're not the only one here, that's for sure.... A new, harsh, unknown life with a lot of strict rules now lays ahead!

And when you are taken to your cell block for the first time, and you encounter a whole column of fellow prisoners while crossing the courtyard in your full restraints, you realize something else: outside of that cell block, your hands and feet will always be shackled for safety's sake, that fucking tight leather belt around your waist with those bloody handcuffs attached to it, will from now on become your standard equipment as soon as you leave it, heavy leg-irons included.

EXPERIENCE THE UNIQUE AMERICAN WAY OF PRISON LIFE!

I have started this new blog about one of my greatest phantasies: to experience a real American prison from the inside. After being transported to a huge state penitentiary of the maximum security category, surrounded by barbed wire, walls and moats, and the obligatory humiliating stripsearch immediately at arrival, a hidden severe world is welcoming all new inmates for many years to come, offering a lot of rest, partly to be spend in solitary confinement:

Barred cells, serious shackles, rattling chains, prison stripes and finally the famous chain gang - always secured in full restraints: that's the way i like it!

Well, and there is your cell, completely for your own, your home for the next years. Which one will be yours? Is your new neighbor already winking you? Will it be No.2, 4, 5, 6? They are all identical - in a good prison all inmates are treated equal, as they are all dressed the same, their individuality reduced to their identification number stamped on their plastic wristband and maybe printed on their new uniform too.

And then one of those cell-doors is opened for you, and you have to go inside. After your handcuffs and leg-irons are taken off, the guards leave your cell, the barred door is banged shut and you're left alone.

You're locked up now, and the only part of your captive body that you can now move past those damned iron bars of your cell by yourself are your hands. The rest remains inside and has to wait till the door will be unlocked again - next morning or next week or next month, or whenever, that's no longer up to you...

[male-us-prison-experience]

THE SPECIAL SHACKLE-SHUFFLE IN PRISON STRIPES (PART II)

A new prisoner who is placed in full restraints for the first time in a way has to learn to walk again, because he is not yet used to wearing leg irons. And walking in leg-irons isn’t easy, regardless of the length of the connecting chain. You have to get used to that. This results in the famous shackle shuffle, which can be admired in many video clips. About that special kind of shackle-enforced shuffling I will talk in this blog another time. In this episode I would like to briefly focus on an aspect that mostly receives less attention. That is the rest of the prisoner's body position, as a result of being forced to wear the special leather restraining-belt with handcuffs.

Take a good look at this photo; I give a detail-view of it below. If you look closely, you will first see that the inmate, already clad in prison stripes, has slumped shoulders and holds his handcuffed hands in the middle of his crotch. That is of course a rather unnatural position, but the cuffs leave him no choice. Thanks to being attached to the belt, his hands not only pull his arms tightly down, but also tightly inwards, where you would normally let them hang relaxed at the side. You can of course hold them up, but that quickly becomes quite tiring. Especially those with relatively short arms have little room for maneuver, their arms will be just stretched from shoulders to belt.

Holding the hands far forward is also not possible due to the D-Ring. You perhaps can bend them a little forward on both its sides until the chain is taut against the arch of the D, but you can't keep that up indefinitely either. Result: you quickly just let them hang down.

However, in that case they will constantly press against your crotch and rub with every footstep. To avoid that, as this can quickly become irritating, you unconsciously adjust your posture. You pull in your stomach to make a bit room for your cuffed hands and you also bend your upper body slightly forward to make even more room below, and therefore you automatically stick your butt out back.

That is what you can see in this photo: as a result of the full restraints, the prisoner walks slightly bent forward all the time, and therefore automatically with his butt clearly pushed back and up. That is a very humiliating position to have to move around in or to enter the courthouse, especially if there are also many spectators or even photographers from the press present during such a prep walk to capture your arrival. Such a constantly visibly raised butt then gives you an extra feeling of great vulnerability, because in that case it is inevitably captured forever for a large audience in their pics too.

The leg-irons obviously will make that gait even more uncomfortable for the prisoner, as they force him to take careful steps and often look at the ground, which of course causes his butt to stick out in this humiliating way even further.

If you pay attention, you can also see it in many other prisoners walking in full restraints, this position that expresses powerlessness: the stomach drawn in, the upper body leaning slightly forward, the butt back and up. Sometimes more, sometimes less - a prisoner will always try to minimize the attention his bottom might attract, but the discomfort of his restraints often leaves him little choice. Here are a few examples, with the same psychologically uncomfortable body position as that of our main hero.

In the pic above, the protruding butt is somewhat hidden by the swinging end of the belt, but you can see from the prisoner's body position that all in all it is sticking out considerably. The triptych of the next photo is actually even more telling. Right from the front, in the right photo, at first sight nothing seems to be 'wrong'.

But in the middle photo, straight from the side, where the shackled inmate is taking long strides (the chain between his ankle cuffs is stretched to its maximum length), you can see, as a result of the tight fastening of the belt, a slightly rounded upper back above that, and below that the prominent arched bulge of his protruding buttocks. The jumpsuit accentuates that extra. The buttocks also look good in the photo on the left, from the back.

When wearing this kind of restraint-belt, the tendency to raise the butt is probably stronger in average than when wearing a belly chain, because the latter allows just a little more freedom of movement. As a rule, it is easier to slide it up a little further, unless it’s applied in an idiotic tight way, but then it will pinch you, and carrying it thus can become very painful and even unhealthy.

That risk is much lower with such a leather belt. It quickly becomes stuck. It can actually always be quite tight without causing any danger, and if it is placed exactly at the narrowest zone of the waist as tight as possible, it is virtually immobile due to its width.

This tightly applied belt also contributes to accentuating the inmates bum itself, because it firmly constricts the prisoner's abdomen and back from all sides. Due to that pressure, it forces the wearer to both hold in his stomach and arch his back slightly, and thus it creates automatically a concave lower back directly above the buttocks, thanks to which the already prominently protruding butt is even further accentuated. In most cases it therefore will be very difficult, or at least fatiguing, for an inmate shackled like this to prevent his bum from extending backward and upward.

You can also study that effect very well in this group photo - all four inmates of course wearing the same prison uniform (a black-and-white striped two-piece, with open plastic sandals, although not all in the same color!), and restrained in the same way , including leg-irons (recognizable in case of the second man from the right).

The enforced protruding butt is clearly visible on the leftmost prisoner, who looks back. The belt with the cuffs clearly pulls in his stomach. His shirt hides the effect a little, because it naturally stands out a bit wider, thereby partly concealing the butt part of the trousers that protrudes towards the back. If he would wear a jumpsuit, his literally outstanding butt would come in full view.

The second guy stands almost still, then it is easier to keep your back straight again. The third struggles to take the step up, and holds his hands very convulsively against his chest, as if he indeed wants to hold his butt at all costs, with that bloody photographer nearby. The fourth also just steps up, automatically straightening his back slightly.

The effect is also visible in this video-clip, during the regrettably rather short moments the inmate going to court is shown from the side. You can see his buttocks moving in a slightly unnatural position.

As mentioned: whether or not there is an effect probably depends largely on the arm length - and possibly also on the prisoner's own choice: to tolerate the discomfort of hands pressing against the crotch rather than the humiliating position of the helplessly pronounced buttocks raised up.

Here is a tableau of a whole series of prisoners who have all been strapped with the belt and the handcuffs. They all struggle with the question of what the best posture is. As a result, they all walk slightly differently than they would without the belt, with their butts further back - some more, some less. Some inmates are better at preventing this than others.

The two outer prisoners in the bottom row, seen from the front, are clearly making an effort to suppress the natural tendency to just stick their butts out in this situation. The two next to it, on either side of the large square detail shot in the middle, are equipped with a belly chain instead of a belt; for them the effect is less strong, but still present.

However in the case of the inmate on the pic we started with, that ass must really stick out very, very humiliatingly far to the rear. Comparing his posture to that of many others, in his case it must result in an extra pronounced upward standing bum. He struggles more than the others with finding the least awkward and embarrassing position while walking. In the photo at the top right, he has just gotten off the car and is still trying to walk upright and not give in to the natural tendency to bend over because of the belt. Walking like that isn't easy, as his concentrated, pained look shows. In the photo above left he therefore actually lets it all go, and his butt promptly shoots back and up.

At the same time he still seems to be trying frantically to suppress this with all force while climbing the steps - his gaze is still very tense - because such an emphatic presentation of your bottom in the context of the homosocial environment of a male prison quickly has a connotation of sexual submissiveness and sexual availability. His deeply felt degrading posture, and this is rather exceptional, for that reason is even noticeable from the front.

Finally: have a look again on the clip i gave a link to at the last entry ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vzE4JSmzLw) . Between 6:00 and 6:15 you see the inmate entering court from the side (see the technically bad, but clear video-still inserted here). This makes his buttocks stand out well - and because his upper body has been pulled forward by the belt and handcuffs, it is now clearly visible how he cannot prevent them from protruding very vulnerable far back, and how he is forced to emphatically present them in this humiliating situation to the already waiting photographer.

To be continued......

[male-us-prison-experience]

ALL THE STUFF YOU NEED.....

The pic shows everything a good prison officer needs to transport a new inmate safely from court to prison in full restraints, without any risk of escape: a pair of leg-irons, a pair of handcuffs, plus a strong leather waist-belt to attach them to. Or: as an alternative to the latter, for even higher security: the black box making the hand-cuffs totally inflexible, the belly-chain to attach them to, plus, as the finishing touch, the pad-lock to fix the whole.

[male-us-prison-experience]

A CRUCIAL TOOL OF DISCIPLINE IN MOST AMERICAN PRISONS: THE LEATHER WAIST BELT WITH STEEL HANDCUFFS IN FRONT

Well, let's start with a simple pic, which i like very much: a new prisoner, presumably just arrested a few days before, brought to the court-house for trial by two police-officers. They just brought them there with the car you see on the background.

This is always a very humiliating moment for a new prisoner, who in this case indeed does not look very happy. He now has to bridge the distance from the car to the front door of the courthouse, in full view of family, random onlookers and - if the crime for which he is to appear appeals to the imagination - often also the local (sometimes even national) press: the so-called perp walk. This can be just a few meters, but sometimes also a considerable distance.

The suspect no longer appears in his own civilian clothes, but has already put on a prison uniform. Presumably he was forced to wear it immediately after his incarceration in the local jail, prior to his first night behind bars.....

The bright orange color makes him very visible and makes him contrast sharply with the police officers behind him and all bystanders.

The stigmatizing effect of this will not go unnoticed by the wearer of this uniform: it clearly separates the (not yet convicted) criminal from the civil society that will soon keep him behind impenetrable concrete walls for many months or even many years because of the crime he has committed. from a state prison. The forced wearer of such a uniform immediately feels like an inmate, and it influences his mindset and his behavior. It often automatically makes them a bit more docile.

For this uniform, the prison has not opted for a so-called two-piece, trousers and shirt, but for a very basic one-piece jumpsuit, which is simply closed at the front with a row of six or seven silver-colored press studs one above the other. This was indeed done neatly, in accordance with prison regulations, so that the top snap button is not clearly visible. This also applies to the bottom one(s) for another reason. These jumpsuits are often much too big and fit around the wearer like a bag. But it fits well here - and it looks good on him too, I must add.

Most prisoners - but they don't have a say in that - would prefer a two-piece, because it is more practical and you look even more out of place in such a jumpsuit, especially with that row of clearly visible press studs on top of each other. Its compulsory wearing is experienced by many as extra humiliating. Perhaps this also plays a conscious role for the prison authorities, but such a jumpsuit is moreover considered 'safer' because it is more difficult to hide everything in it.

The guy is of course extra recognizable as a prisoner because, as is prescribed in almost all states for the transport of prisoners (and often also in court), he is carefully handcuffed. He wears a wide leather belt around his waist, to which a set of handcuffs is attached in a very simple but effective manner in the middle of the front. This combination is very effective in making any possible attempt at resistance impossible. There are circulating on the internet many pics showing inmates in court shackled this way, like this one.

Only after the belt is placed, with the buckle out of reach of his side at the rear, the cuffs are put on. At the front, where on a normal belt the buckle would be, there is fixed a large steel D-ring that protrudes straight forward. The D-Ring is wide enough to pull an open cuff through it. The short connecting chain between the two separate cuffs then passes through this D-ring, so that one handcuff hangs down on each side. Only thereafter are the handcuffs themselves placed on the prisoner's wrists one by one.

With that they are immediately inextricably attached to the belt, because the prisoner can now no longer possibly free himself from this situation – nor from the shackles, nor from the grip of the D-ring on his shackles. He is forced to keep his hands low in front of his crotch all the time, because the D-ring plus the short chain offer little room for maneuver. He can no longer do anything dangerous with them, and it is also completely impossible for him to hold them in front of his face to avoid the curious eyes of onlookers.

I’ve here inserted a photo of another prisoner in the courtroom itself, this time in a two-piece uniform, which clearly shows how in fact a normal belt has been reversed, with the buckle at the back. In addition, I deliver underneath a detailed photo that shows much better how exactly the handcuffs are attached. A video is also circulating on the Internet, showing how a brand new juvenile detainee is handcuffed in this way immediately after he has had to change clothes and put on his new (this time black-and-white striped) prison uniform. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vzE4JSmzLw

An alternative to the leather belt with handcuffs consists of a steel chain around the waist, to which the handcuffs are attached, sometimes in advance, sometimes on the side. The latter is a much more natural position than both hands right in front of your crotch. Although steel is more uncomfortable than leather, most prisoners - but of course they are never asked  - seem to prefer it. This socalled belly-chain offers more freedom of movement, as you can with some physical flexibility move it up or down rather far. The belt is usually stuck to your waist. Because your belt is really fixed, so are your handcuffs. Even swearing an oath in court is this way difficult, as the pic underneath shows. Of course, seen from the opposite perspective, it is very safe and therefore convenient for the guards.

Many prisoners find having to wear such a leather belt, to which the handcuffs are attached by inserting them through the D-ring, and in which case the handcuffs after locking also automatically are attached to the belt too, more humiliating than a belly-chain with handcuffs on it. It feels a bit like being a dog on a leash. The belt indeed can offer a good grip for the guard...

Moreover, a leather belt around the waist is traditionally a symbol of male pride and self-confidence, hence the striking buckles in cowboy culture. There, such a belt embodies male freedom. And that male symbol of freedom is turned into its opposite here: by attaching his handcuffs, to a prisoner it becomes the symbol of his loss of freedom, of his powerlessness.

The photo ends just above the prisoner's knees. Although his feet are not raised, it is almost certain that he is, as its called, 'fully restrained', meaning that in addition to the belt and handcuffs, he is also wearing foot cuffs. That is the standard combination, especially for prisoners on transport. Naturally, these were also applied to the video clip just now. There is little chance that they were omitted in this case. Also he will thus have looked like this outside on the street.

[male-us-prison-experience]

Just back from my holiday trip, already the next day I had a great experience, as this pic may make clear.....

It shows me wearing my new American prison outfit for the first time in public last saturday: black and white striped jumpsuit from Bob Barker with my inmate number printed on it, plus shackles and handcuffs of Smith & Wesson, the latter attached to the leather transport-waistbelt with D-Ring, made after the original model by a local leather tailor in my own town.

The walk we had to make at the festival during the parade in front of an audience of thousands of people in the streets of that city stretched over a kilometer. This means I probably have the Dutch distance record for running in leg irons! The length of the connecting chain between the cuffs in my case was just 37 cm (so rather short, as most models offer 42 or 45 cm), but thanks to trying them out already at home before, i even never stumbled....

Here two fragments of the pic, showing the stuff more in detail.

[male-us-prison-experience]

This is one of my favorite images of The American Way of Prison Life. I would like to experience what it is like to be in the position of one of the two young men on the left and right. What stands out at first glance at the photo is their identical, bright orange-colored outfit, consisting of pants and a short-sleeved shirt. The right one looks at the ground, the left one stares ahead. Between them is an older man dressed in black, who takes them both under his arm in a rather conversational, but also with a determined look.

On the second look you see diagonally behind the trio a van with the text 'Police' on the far right, with 'City of Harrisburg' further back, also just legible. The man in the middle is a police officer, as can be recognized on closer inspection by the revolver on his right hip and the badge on his left chest. They've just stepped out of that bus, as another pic of the police offer with the left guy shows.

A third look: on the left trouser leg of both young men, DCP is printed on orange in large black letters. That trio of letters stands for Dauphin County Prison, the penitentiary of Pennsylvania. Both are inmates, and their orange clothing is their mandatory prison uniform.

As its Inmate Handbook found on the internet states: “You will be issued your prison uniform immediately upon arrival”. And a little further on: “You are required to be properly dressed in your Prison uniform at all times” - inside the prison, but of course also outside it. Although the officer who takes them away holds them quite loosely, they make no move to resist or run away.

Two inmates accompanied by just one police officer in between them: you will not often see that. Usually you will find pics of the reverse: two police officers escorting one inmate in between.

On a fourth look at our main pic you however will see that both prisoners – in the case of the left one largely hidden behind his left arm and the envelope he is holding in his right hand, more visible in case of the other - are wearing a wide brown leather belt around their waist. It's a rather tight fit, much tighter than would be necessary to keep his pants from falling down. It is not for that purpose either; where you would expect the buckle, instead a large steel D-shaped ring protrudes, which is fixed to the strap. The latter can be seen slightly better at the left inmate.

Through this sturdy ring passes the very short chain of a pair of handcuffs, which are closed around the prisoner's wrists. These handcuffs leave the wearer very little freedom of movement in this way; he is forced to keep his hands pressed tightly against his crotch all the time, and can no longer do anything dangerous with them. Because the handcuffs are inserted through the ring of the belt, there is no way for the wearer to free himself from that powerless position. The belt itself is buckled behind his back, putting the buckle completely out of his reach.

That buckle of course isn't visible on this pic here, but when you search a bit on the internet, you will find some (not very much) pics of inmates seen from behind showing this arrangement very clear. In fact the belt is a normal waist-belt worn the other way round, the front at the back, the back at the front, with just that big D-Ring fixed with help of strong nails on what has become the center of the front afterwards. This pic combines a front view from one inmate with a back view of another, for sure dressed and restrained the same way.

Although thanks to this arrangement the buckle is complete out of reach of the restrained wearer of the belt, if you have more inmates together, they might help to free each other. For maximum security in that case a padlock, fixing the belt in place, might be added to be absolute sure. If that's indeed done in our case, we can't discover.

To return to our main pic: On a fifth look you finally see - it is not noticeable at first - that a short chain runs between both feet, directly under the end of the orange trouser legs and above their shoes. Both prisoners wear not only handcuffs, but also leg irons.The shackles themselves, which are locked around their ankles, cannot be seen; they are hidden under the trouser legs. The connecting chain is so short that running away is completely impossible.

Already the little step of the left fellow is enough to almost completely tension the chain; a slightly larger one, and he stumbles. Because the shackles are not tied over, but under the trouser legs, i.e. directly around the prisoners' socks, the wearer feels them extra; with every step the chain tugs slightly on the foot cuff. This is much more painful on thin socks (let alone bare skin) than if there is also the fabric of the uniform trousers in between. That also puts a brake on fast walking.

In many cases, however, you will rencounter the reverse: the cuffs of the leg-irons locked not under, but over the pants of the inmate. In that case, the shackles are of course much more noticeable, which some prisoners may experience as more humiliating. On the other hand, it is clearly more comfortable to wear them like that, especially if you have to walk more than just a few meters.

Is there any conscious policy underlying this choice from the side of the prison authorities? You come across both variants very often, it is difficult to say which is more common, anyhow: I have not been able to discover any system so far. That is worth further investigation. Here at least is a pic showing the very intense moment a brand new inmate is getting his leg-irons locked on the opposite way for the first time.

Anyhow: it explains why both prisoners of our main pic willingly allow themselves to be taken here, outside the walls of the guarded prison: not only is any attempt at resistance made by the handcuffs, but also any attempt to escape because of the shackles pointless. This combination of belt-with-handcuffs and leg cuffs is known as 'full restraints'. The use of full restraints is mandatory in most US states as a standard security measure for all prisoners during their transport.