Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC) Commissioner Tyrone Oliver told state lawmakers federal restrictions hamper prisons’ ability to stop contraband-delivering drones. Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder (2024 file photo)
Some Georgia lawmakers want to use state resources to keep drones from dropping off contraband like drugs and cell phones at detention facilities.
Matthew Wolfe, director of the Office of Professional Standards within the Georgia Department of Corrections, said a months-long investigation that led to the arrest of 150 suspects drove down drone activity last year, with only 15 drone incidents reported last December, but Wolfe told the House Appropriations Committee on Public Safety Monday that incidents have increased steadily this year, reaching 63 in November.
Despite the illegality, flying contraband into detention facilities can be a lucrative business, said Georgia Department of Corrections Commissioner Tyrone Oliver, and inmates are often willing to clamber up pipes to access the roof to retrieve the illicit packages.
“Some of it is dropping on the yard. The majority of them are dropping on the ceiling,” he said. “So what you have, when you’re talking about our aging infrastructure, most of the prisons that were built, they have internal pipe chases inside the dorm, inside the dormitory themselves. The inmates are able to get inside the pipe chase, access the roof, which is the metal roof, push it up, get the contraband, come back in.”
When prison officials spot a drone, the first thing they do is call local law enforcement, Wolfe said.
“That local law enforcement starts patrolling looking for a vehicle or suspicious people in the area. My canine team is also dispatched to the location in case there’s something in the woods that needs to be tracked. That’s the normal protocol.”
But the protocol does not include knocking drones out of the sky, whether by shooting it or jamming its communications. Oliver said that’s because Washington has tied their hands.
“When we talk about mitigation, especially when it comes to drones, federal law prohibits us from interfering with that unmanned aircraft,” he said. “So, even if it’s flying to where I can reach it, ceiling high, I can’t touch it.”
“I might as well just go ahead and go to Hartsfield Jackson and interfere with a Delta jet going across the sky, it’s the same penalties,” he added.
Cochran Republican state Rep. Danny Mathis was incredulous.
“You’re telling me that you don’t have the legal authority if you have a restricted area like a prison, and that drone flies in that restricted area, you don’t have the authority to stop it?”
“That’s correct,” Oliver said.
“That needs to be changed,” Mathis said. “That just makes no sense.”
Oliver said he has been lobbying the Federal Aviation Administration, Federal Communications Commission and members of Congress for change at the federal level and expressed optimism that a resolution could be coming soon.
The state Legislature can’t overrule federal laws, but Mathis suggested the state government could pitch in dollars to help counties offset spending on prosecuting drone-related crimes.
“Some of them are very poor counties and they can’t afford to do this,” he said. “So the state has got to step up, in my opinion, to help these counties offset some of this.”
Hartwell Republican state Rep. Alan Powell suggested skipping the middleman in the state’s lobbying efforts and petitioning President Donald Trump directly.
“Water runs downhill and it runs from the White House,” Powell said. “We have a system of government that’s being run off of executive orders today, which is scary to me at the least. But it seems to me like probably the best thing the legislators can do in the various states would be to send the president an appeal to let him deal with the federal aviation and things like that and move forward.”
