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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.
Clearly he smuggled it up is ass
When someone can escape a prison with a pair of wire cutters, a drone is not the problem. How did he get access to the fence? Why does it only take the possession of a pair of wire cutters to escape the prison?
This is a "think about the children" moment where the signal blocking technology is what they want, but not the problem.
If the prison pays for all outgoing and incoming calls, then they may block cellphone calls.
Prisons have instituted ridiculously expensive phone plans to help pay for their costs.
This is wrong, placing an undue burden on both the families and the prisoners. Wealthy prisoners should not be allowed to buy a better prison experience, which means you can not overcharge prisoners for so called luxuries.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
At this point, premade UAVs can easily be reprogrammed to be fully autonomous (with minimal skill) and microwave jamming won't do anything to stop it. What's really needed here is for the prison guards to actually... guard the prison. -_-
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
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
I don't understand how that's supposed to address the drone problem. So you can't fly under manual control? Fine, fly to GPS coordinates and do everything automatically. A prison yard isn't exactly a small target, you don't need precision. Are they planning to jam GPS too? Fine, you're not talking a long flight, inertial guidance on a calm day should do it.
With the amount of money involved in drug smuggling, I don't think any of this poses a hindrance except to amateurs with no connections. So unless they're planning to HERF or shoot drones out of the sky...
Dear Diary...today I was pompous and my sister was crazy.
Make inmates wear tamper-resistant collars with a grenade attached. They mess with the collar, they get blown up, and so does anyone else that was messing with the collar. Also make it so that the collars can be remote detonated. Someone escapes a California prison and goes to Maine? One phone call, and the felon's body gets ripped to shreds. :) Bonus points if his or her family members also get blown up.
Someone's been watching too much Running Man. Where are we going to find a sufficiently sadistic game show host for phase 2?
Notice the title says "Blame". I think that is the perfect word. Rather than accepting responsibility, they are blaming technology. If an escape happens it's the people securing the facilities fault, whether they use a pitchfork or a drone.
Sent from my TARDIS
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.
If a drone can fly over the fence and drop tools to a prisoner, how intrinsically different is that than basically THROWING the tools over the fence?
Sure the drone is a lot more accurate, but heck of a lot noisier too.
I smell excuse-hunting here; this guy already escaped them once (how is it that every jackass with a DWI can get an ankle monitor, yet a prisoner IDENTIFIED as a successful escapee doesn't have one?). On the second escape, they're looking harder to CYA than to find him.
-Styopa
If only there was a way to put a small cell tower inside a prison and watch what calls were being made.
Some sort of triangulation device might be useful, too.
No sig today...
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.
Of course not, because the problem with drugs is that they are illegal. Drug prohibition is the stupidest policy in the Western world.
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.