Police routinely use handcuffs when arresting people, no matter if the person is pregnant, wounded, injured, a child, suffering from dementia, or even if they are dead. The basic police procedure of handcuffing everyone so that the police don't appear discriminatory to anyone, is nonsensical, for there are a lot of really bad reasons to handcuff everyone indiscriminately, along with the most fundamental problem of them all, which is, many people that have been arrested should not be handcuffed with their hands behind their back in the first place for they pose no flight danger, no physical danger, no conformity danger, and have offered no resistance or have not the capacity to offer resistance or trouble to the arresting officer.
To say that all crimes, or alleged crimes, fit the exact same mold, so that all those that are arrested for crimes, should be handcuffed is stupid and unacceptable, for there are many crimes that have absolutely nothing to do with violence whatsoever, in which, these people have shown no predisposition for violence, aren't acting violent, are physically weak, are vulnerable, are a female, elderly, or very young juveniles, and they should not be handcuffed unless circumstances clearly substantiate the exception to the obvious.
The handcuffing of arrestees has not a lot to do with the actual need to control an arrestee but has a lot more to do with police asserting their power to control, to humiliate, to hurt and to belittle the arrestee. The fact that a particular person has been arrested in the first place, has essentially turned their life upside down, but to add pain and punishment because a criminal charge has been made against a given person, does not make that person, guilty of that charge, in addition, with most people, if you treat them with respect and dignity, they will treat you the very same way back.
While, certainly there are times that necessitate handcuffing a suspect, and while it is pertinent to take into account, the size and strength of a suspect, their mental state, whether they are a fugitive, and so on and so forth, it isn't right that handcuffing suspects of all stripes and types is considered to be routine or policy, because, it really is a form of street punishment meted out by the state through its policing authority, against suspects that have been convicted of nothing, and have yet to be found guilty in a courtroomof their peers, though they are handcuffed as if they are guilty of something.
The police like to talk about safety, in particular, they imply that handcuffing of suspects is necessary to protect the public, to protect the person being arrested, and only as an afterthought as a protection for the arresting arm of the state, but the truth is that handcuffing suspects often isn't necessary, adds unnecessary tension to the situation, is deliberately cruel to the suspect, and a form of punishment for those that have been convicted of no crime.
The policing authority of the state is supposed to serve and to protect the citizens of that state, bur their actions of treating citizens as if they were animals, in need of restraint through the indiscriminate usage of handcuffs, reflects their contempt of those citizens, who have an inherent right to be free of any punishment and to be free of any coercion, until they have been lawfully convicted in a court of law, for those that are arrested but are never convicted of any crime, yet suffered through being arrested, embarrassed, inconvenienced, harmed, and handcuffed, never do receive any recompense from the policing arm of the state, other than the stamp of disrespect they received by that policing arm when they were first handcuffed.