Drones are the New CONTRABAND SMUGGLERS
How Malicious UAV Threats Can Be Countered Without Hindering Productive Drones
Emily Rhodes
Since 2020, more than two million uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs), most commonly known as drones, have been registered by law to the Federal Aviation Administration. In 2022, more than 855,000 new registrations have been filed thus far—and this says nothing of the drones that are purchased and never registered. With drones accessible to the general public, secure facilities like jails and prisons are now encountering skyrocketing cases of drones smuggling contraband such as drugs, weapons, ammunition, lighters, escape kits, cell phones, and more. Violations of prison security occur across the country on a near daily basis, and the risks of a breach are only increasing with airspace becoming more and more crowded with small, easy to purchase drones. Understanding which devices are threats will support positive drone enablement while countering the dangerous ones.
Contraband is commonplace in jails and prisons. In fact, it’s rather lucrative for people smuggling it in, as well as for inmates and prison gangs who often use these illegal items maliciously. Daniel Simon, a major at the Lee County Sheriff’s Office of South Carolina has stated that if a yard is dry, a flip phone might go for as much as $1,500, while internet-connected devices could go for upwards of $3,000. It’s obvious that trafficking contraband into correctional facilities is not going away any time soon. In response to this, a range of screening methods to prevent smuggled goods from getting into jails and prisons is necessary for achieving situational awareness. The most novel way contraband is making its way through the sally port is by flying above it via drone. Achieving comprehensive airspace awareness is the only way correctional facilities can counter the threat of contraband trafficking.
Criminal Cases Involving Drones
With criminal cases involving drones on the rise, there is now a riskier environment for officers on the job as well as the incarcerated. During one incident at Mansfield Correctional Institution in Mansfield, Ohio, officers caught wind of commotion in the yard after noticing many inmates gathered around and a fight breaking out. Authorities later realized, after viewing surveillance tape that a drone had flown above the yard and dropped a package. Inmates got their hands on the drop, which contained 144.5 grams of tobacco, 6.6 grams of heroin, and 65.4 grams of marijuana. In this situation, officers in the yard were forced to use pepper spray to de-escalate the situation. Inmates had to be stripped before returning to their cells, and nine inmates were sent to solitary confinement.
In another case, one man allegedly operated a drone smuggling scheme in Maryland that was so lucrative it afforded the man on the outside to buy a brand new truck. Those incarcerated on the inside would pick up their deliveries while on their evening dog-walking duty. Once apprehended, the smuggler claimed he used a drone that could carry up to 1 pound to aid in the plot—right about the weight of an average handgun.
Central Georgia facilities have seen the number of contraband drops by drones increase 80% in 2022, an uptick in smuggling of everything from tobacco and cell phones to hard drugs and weapons. To combat these illicit airborne operations, two deputies are now posted every night, patrolling the prison area and the surrounding community for 12-hour shifts.
In New Jersey, four men allegedly went to great lengths to keep Fort Dix prison officials from detecting and intercepting contraband they were smuggling in via drone. Two men who were inmates at the facility, arranged with two other men outside of the facility, to fly drones into the facility
airspace and drop packages of contraband into the corrections facility. Once the contraband was collected, it was then sold to inmates for profit. Items included cell phones, weight loss supplements, tobacco, eyeglasses, and more. The two men inside the prison took the inmates’ requests for contraband and then later oversaw the collection of payment. To make matters worse, contraband cell phones were used to help coordinate the drops.
To decrease their odds of being spotted, the two men outside the facility took additional measures to avoid being detected, such as scheduling and executing the deliveries during the overnight hours, flying the drones from concealed positions in the nearby woods, and covering the lights on the drones to make them more challenging to spot.
Neutralizing Dangerous Drone Threats
Such events are far more common than one may assume, and these are just incidents in which individuals were caught. Situations involving illegal drone activity are not isolated to just one jail, prison, county, or state—the use of drones to deliver contraband to inmates is happening all over the country. And while there might not yet be reports of a drone delivering a loaded handgun or a taser, it’s not outside the scope of possibility. Certainly, protecting correctional facilities from the threat of drones dropping weapons is something that warrants proactive awareness rather than a reactive response.
Historically, identifying and detaining a drone pilot involved in the smuggling of contraband was nearly impossible, even when contraband is found and confiscated by officers. With the advancement of drone technology, detection has become just a piece of the larger puzzle illustrating the mitigation of potential UAV threats. And for continued protection, adequate drone detection is a must. Prisons and jails should not stop at detecting incidents and viewing them as isolated, but zoom out to see the larger picture: drones are systematically threatening the safety of officers and incarcerated people at an accelerating rate.
Comprehensive airspace awareness can only be achieved through technology that gives jails and prisons the tools they need to track where the drones originate, locate the perpetrators whereabouts, and stop the smuggling through real-time drone data and analytics. Many systems only account for the airspace above a given area and are no longer sufficient in defending prisons that face threats from perpetually advancing drones, many of which can travel from miles away.
The critical aspect of a resolution comes down to the speed at which the operator is detected and the ability to analyze drone flight patterns. Cloud-based counter drone software that identifies unauthorized drone activity through these means also empowers prisons at the federal, state, and private sectors to neutralize threats and take back control of their airspace—both within the walls of the facility and the surrounding area outside of those walls.
The Science behind the Scenes
A malicious drone defense management system can work without the requirements of significant expenses or equipment. Unlike drone management technology that requires hardware within jail walls, a cloud-based management system allows jail authorities to simply log in to a dashboard to monitor drone activity in the area and receive active alerts when necessary. Eliminating the need for deployment and maintenance of equipment, these defense management systems use a city-scale coverage network, which provides far more awareness than a piece of hardware that only monitors the airspace directly above any given facility.
With this, sensors that can detect drone activity in the airspace above and around jails and prisons are installed across America. Similar to how people purchase coverage through network providers such as AT&T or Verizon, organizations can buy into and access the counter drone network. The advantages of this include seeing the flight path of a drone, where it was launched from, and the previous flight record historical data, giving better insight into whether or not a particular drone has flown into the airspace before and perhaps equally as important, where these drones go afterward. This coverage network is monitored over time, and any hardware or updates to the systems in the field are done without requiring customers to maintain equipment.
Cloud-based drone tracking systems require a great deal of knowledge to effectively deploy and specialized testing to validate coverage of an area. The data company from which the system stems takes on any burdens of deploying sensors and testing the range to ensure it is optimal. Because sensors are deployed across areas to optimize coverage, systems can be deployed at the most strategic locations for the highest performance. If hardware is only installed on-site, as it is in point-defense systems, comprehensive area coverage and the ability to visualize where the drone originates is next to impossible.
On top of the unmatched deployment and range of coverage, a cloud-based counter drone solution with a city-scale coverage network has a same-day rollout. This means it can be ready to launch without modification and, in most cases, can have an immediate startup. Cloud solutions also offer remote support, reducing the demand for prison manpower and freeing up officers to respond to any threat or incident.
Sgt. Oghenetega Onoshirie
Should the monitored airspace be breached by an unauthorized drone, automated notifications are sent to the entire organization with real-time chain-of-command status updates. Should there be an actual incident, forensic support for post-incident follow-up can be provided as well. This includes generating reports for investigators, prosecutors, and potential expert witness testimony. Additionally, cloud systems can be supplied with updates over time that are based on research developed in real-time to better protect secure facilities from bad actors. In other words, no waiting for periodic system updates or time-consuming manual maintenance of your counter-drone systems.
Utilizing Drones to Monitor Facilities and Enforce Safety
There has been a mass exodus of employees in a vast number of careers, and corrections is no different. Correction officers have become quite difficult not only to hire but to retain. Many are frustrated with the long work hours, violent working environments, and isolated work locations. This is happening as many politicians are pushing for harsher sentences, making for growing jail and prison populations. In some states, the shortage of correctional officers has pushed elected officials to declare a state of emergency, calling in the National Guard to assist in the staffing of jails.
…a cloud-based counter drone solution with a city-scale coverage network has a same-day rollout. This means it can be ready to launch without modification…
Among other new and inventive ideas, one approach jail executives are taking into consideration is the deployment of drones to patrol prisons. Many officials believe drones on jail grounds could be a way to “fill the shoes” that actual officers cannot. As such, just asimportant as mitigating threats from malicious drones, it’s also necessary to enable their safe use. Implementing drone defense management software will ensure the sky above is not just screened for malicious drones but made safe for the use of other necessary drones.
Knocking Out the Problem for the Long Term
Comprehensive airspace awareness is necessary for jails to detect and mitigate threats from above. Still, jail operators should not have to become drone or radio frequency experts to protect themselves, their inmates, and their facility from drones. And they certainly shouldn’t have to do it by relying on complicated hardware. That responsibility should be left to specialists who can provide the necessary expertise with future-forward technology and a trove of drone data.
By collecting extensive drone activity data from growing city-scale drone networks, these management solutions provide the most effective starting point in mitigating contraband from entering prisons via drones. At its root, cloud-based counter drone technology boosts better decision-making and helps achieve better outcomes that are a function of the collection and analysis of massive amounts of structured data.
The illegal use of drones to deliver contraband to jails will not dwindle any time soon, but instead become mainstream mules as UAVs advance in capability. We can expect to see an increase in this as drones become more sophisticated and more widely available. From now on, detecting and neutralizing drones will be a necessity for secure facilities. Cloud-based drone management systems provide an incredibly valuable solution for the present and future, countering the risks of drones in secure facilities by creating situational airspace awareness for prison officials.
___________________________________
Emily Rhodes is Vice President of Marketing at SkySafe. With over 16 years of experience leading growth-oriented marketing departments, Emily is passionate about the future of SaaS for process improvement, safety, and cloud technology development. For more information about how SkySafe allows organizations to detect, identify, track, and analyze the drones in their airspace, including the location of the operator, visit www.skysafe.io. Emily may be contacted at info@skysafe.com