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State Prison Officials Blame An Escape On Drones And Cellphones (usatoday.com)
An anonymous reader quotes USA Today:
A fugitive South Carolina inmate recaptured in Texas this week had chopped his way through a prison fence using wire cutters apparently dropped by a drone, prison officials said Friday. Jimmy Causey, 46, fled the Lieber Correctional Institution in Ridgeville, S.C., on the evening of July 4th after leaving a paper mache doll in his bed to fool guards into thinking he was asleep. He was not discovered missing until Wednesday afternoon. Causey was captured early Friday 1,200 miles away in a motel in Austin by Texas Rangers acting on a tip, WLTX-TV reported... "We believe a drone was used to fly in the tools that allow(ed) him to escape," South Carolina Corrections Director Bryan Stirling said...
Stirling said prison officials are investigating the performance by prison guards that night but pointed to cellphones and drones as the main problem. The director said he and other officials have sought federal help for years to combat the use of drones to drop contraband into prison. "It's a simple fix," Stirling said. "Allow us to block the signal... They are physically incarcerated, but they are not virtually incarcerated."
It's the second time the same convict escaped from South Carolina's maximum security prison -- albeit the first time he's (allegedly) used a drone. The state's Law Enforcement Division Chief also complains that the federal government still prohibits state corrections officials from blocking cellphones, and "as long as cellphones continue to be utilized by inmates in prisons we're going to have things like this -- we're going to have very well-planned escapes..."
Stirling said prison officials are investigating the performance by prison guards that night but pointed to cellphones and drones as the main problem. The director said he and other officials have sought federal help for years to combat the use of drones to drop contraband into prison. "It's a simple fix," Stirling said. "Allow us to block the signal... They are physically incarcerated, but they are not virtually incarcerated."
It's the second time the same convict escaped from South Carolina's maximum security prison -- albeit the first time he's (allegedly) used a drone. The state's Law Enforcement Division Chief also complains that the federal government still prohibits state corrections officials from blocking cellphones, and "as long as cellphones continue to be utilized by inmates in prisons we're going to have things like this -- we're going to have very well-planned escapes..."
Trust me on this, if you've ever been to a SC prison, you know the guards are the real problem. They're paid shit and are often just ghetto thugs themselves. This is the perfect formula for guards willing to look the other way or even help for a small bribe. There have been numerous escapes in recent years where it was later revealed that the guards themselves had smuggled in handcuff keys and bolt-cutters to help in escapes.
Bryan Sterling was a pure political appointee who wants to distract from the real problem by blaming drones, cellphones and other bullshit excuses so he can continue to insist that his agency doesn't need additional funding to hire decent guards and staff. He and other directors were under direct orders from Nikki Haley to never ask for a budget increase, and I suspect he's still under similar orders from Henry McMaster. It's an ongoing problem in a state where the Republican status quo is to continuously cut taxes to appease their political benefactors, no matter the consequences.
Just imagine how many escapes like this you don't hear about!
Totally unrelated: editors wiped out my karma because they don't like my messages, they can't just let the system do it's work, they manually censor this place
I DO have a right to fly drones near prisons. There NO LAW AGAINST IT.
But should there be? We have laws restricting drone usage around airports. I know some people are worried about some sort of precedent where dones are blocked from more and more places... but it makes sense to set up exclusion zones around prisons.
Naturally, the very people such a law would be written to stop would be the same people that would be more willing to break the law... but it makes the act of preparing the smuggle stuff into prisons using drones more risky for the person on the outside. If you're flying a drone outside a jail with wirecutters strapped to them- it would make it legal for police to arrest you.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Drug dealers have known to use catapults.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/15/...
I doubt eliminating drones completely will have ANY significant affect on our nationals drug problem overall.
Many areas use fencing with few if any escapes. usually two layers of fencing with sensors to report contact with (cimbing) and cutting of the fencing with motion sensors in between the two fences, as well as cameras and... Wait for it, a most radical idea: Guards who watch the fences and warn prisoners to stay away from them.
Evidently SC prisons lack all these high falutin technologicnal type features. So a prisoner can walk up to the fence and cut a hole in it and wander off without anyone realizing what has happened until they realize the "body" in his bed hasn't moved in a couple days.
The Drone is the least of their problems. Though it's also a simple problem. Tell the guards, any drone that approaches the fence-line is a skeet target. No more drone problems.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
Because jamming creates a safety hazard for innocent people.
We should probably start by making assisting/aiding an incarcerated person's escape attempt, or facilitating a person in eluding authorities crimes punishable with much greater severity, instead of the current minor penalties. They should also depend on what crimes the escaped people committed.... springing an offender with a life sentence out of jail should land a minimum of 30 years on the violator.
Make it a misdemeanor just to fly a non-commercial aircraft within 500ft horizontal distance of a prison facility at a height of less than 1000ft.
Finally, they should employ means of detecting drones: monitor them closely, train their employees accordingly, and identify/pick up any dropped items --- basically, more vigilant guarding.