Dutch police to be equipped with black handcuffs - less noticeable at night

In the coming years, the Dutch police's gray handcuffs will be replaced by black ones. One reason for this is that the black handcuffs are less visible at night, which means that it will take longer for suspects to notice that they're about to be cuffed, a spokesperson for the National Police said to ANP after reports in AD.

Another advantage of the new handcuffs, is that they are made from aluminum and therefore are much lighter than the current ones. They also come with three keys in different formats, while the current cuffs only have a single small key. The new handcuffs are at least as strong as the current ones.

All 35 thousand police officers will be equipped with the new handcuffs in the coming years. This will be done in steps of around six thousand per year According to the police, there's no reason to do this faster as the current handcuffs still meet all the criteria.