Inmates smuggling via drones
Aerial deliveries of phones, drugs, porn slip behind bars
Justice Department records show more than a dozen attempts to use drones to transport contraband — including mobile phones, drugs and porn — into federal prisons in the past five years. State facilities have reported similar incidents, and experts say anti-drone technologies often fail to prevent the illicit deliveries.
While large companies such as Amazon test drone delivery systems, inmates in jails across the country already use the devices to receive their own aerial shipments: smuggled contraband.
Documents obtained from the Justice Department by USA TODAY through a Freedom of Information Act request uncovered more than a dozen attempts to transport contraband — including mobile phones, drugs and porn — into federal prisons in the past five years. State facilities have reported similar incidents.
Experts said anti-drone technologies fail to protect jails against the unmanned aerial devices that transport dangerous items, including firearms, which are almost impossible to sneak in via traditional prison smuggling methods.
“Civilian drones are becoming more inexpensive, easy to operate and powerful. A growing number of criminals seem to be recognizing their potential value as tools for bad deeds,” said Troy Rule, a drone legislation advocate and Arizona State University law professor.
Though smuggling contraband into prison through any method violates federal law, no statute bars drones from flying near correctional facilities. According to the documents, an inmate at the high-security federal prison in Victorville, Calif., recruited someone to use a drone to smuggle in two cellphones in March 2015. Prison officials didn’t discover the transfer for five months. Similar incidents occurred at the United States Penitentiary in Atwater, Calif., the Federal Correctional Institution in Oakdale, La., and the Federal Correctional Institution in Seagoville, Texas, the documents revealed. The Federal Bureau of Prisons withheld information about other events, citing privacy and security concerns.
Last year, a recently released inmate and two accomplices were convicted of smuggling drugs and porn into Maryland’s Western Correctional Institution via