Drones are such a popular method of bringing contraband into Georgia’s prisons that they’re creating their own mini incarceration boom.
According to recent reports, about 44 percent of people detained in Washington County Jail are there on charges related to contraband drops by unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly referred to as drones, to Washington State Prison. County jails are more or less designed to hold people in that county, but Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC) prisons hold people from all over the state—so a lot of people in Washington County Jail these days are coming in from out of town, which makes the issue one that strains jail capacity.
“It appears that contraband drops are on the increase and as much enforcement as we have, it doesn’t seem to slow it down any,” Washington County Sheriff Joel Cochran told WGXA.
In 2019, the state enacted a law “to prohibit the use of unmanned aircraft systems to deliver or attempt to deliver contraband to a place of incarceration.” It’s now a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Before Senate Bill 6, the punishment was a fine from the Federal Aviation Administration.
“At first it was just, tie a pound of tobacco to a cheap drone and crash it over the fence.”
“At first it was just, tie a pound of tobacco to a cheap drone and crash it over the fence—leaving the drone inside. But that creates problems of disposal,” K*, a gang-affiliated GDC prisoner who’s been moving contraband for over a decade, told Filter. “[Today’s drones] can fly by programmed GPS, drop within a few feet of the pin, and return to sender without needing a camera. That creates a small window to detect.”
Commercial hobby models can easily carry 10 pounds of contraband and cost just a few hundred dollars. K said that drones that can carry even heavier payloads are becoming more common. Once enough “orders” are placed that a drone is at capacity, then the drop is coordinated. K estimated there’s one at his facility on average every 10 days or so.
In 2018, GDC ran a drone-detection pilot at two prisons and logged 300 drone sightings, and the numbers have steadily gone up since then. High-profile drone interdiction is becoming commonplace, too. In 2024 Operation Skyhawk led to the arrest of 150 people, including eight GDC staff. The contraband haul at the end of that months-long investigation included 87 drones and 185 pounds of tobacco. Later that year, the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Georgia announced that the Drug Enforcement Administration-led Operation Night Drop resulted in 23 indictments, plus 10 drones seized among other contraband.
But most drones aren’t intercepted. Officers aren’t allowed to shoot them down, and especially during the pandemic you’d be lucky to have more than three officers on-site for an entire prison anyway.
“We are losing one drone out of six this year so far,” K said. “Acceptable.”
This all dates back to Georgia removing tobacco from prisons.
The surge in drone usage is often linked to contraband cell phones; it’s a big part of how the Federal Communications Commission justified its recent decision to begin the rulemaking process authorizing cell phone signal jammers. But the real motivation to stamp those out is that in recent years they’ve given the public a window, via photos and videos posted to social media from GDC facilities across the state, into the horrors of daily life that politicians count on keeping under wraps.
A recent report of a drone flying over Calhoun State Prison is a representative example. Contents of the duffel bag it was carrying: five cell phones, 14 pounds of tobacco, 2.7 pounds of marijuana and 325 “pieces of wrapping paper.”
This all dates back to Georgia removing tobacco from prisons. The prohibition of a commodity that is legal on the outside fueled the innovation of gang commerce, and was one of the factors that paved the way for the arrival of the prison middle class who could afford cell phones. Now politicians use the same video evidence provided by prisoners to call for new high-tech high-security prisons where they promise there will be no drones and no cell phones.
Washington State Prison was supposed to be a boon for the local economy, and is draining resources instead. A new 3,000-bed prison—twice the size of WSP—is under construction nearby.
*Name has been changed to protect source
Image (cropped) via Georgia Department of Corrections/YouTube
