Probation officers will be given self-defence training, bleed kits and body-worn cameras for the first time under plans before ministers in the wake of two stabbings, the Guardian has learned.
Knife arches and handheld metal-detecting wands, which can be used to search people for weapons, have been approved for pilot schemes in selected offices.
The disclosures come days after a staff member was stabbed in a probation office in Oxford. Separately, a man has admitted the attempted murder in July of a female officer in another probation centre in Preston, Lancashire.
The probation officers’ union, which believes these are the first knife attacks in probation offices, has said members have a “palpable fear” about going to w
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