For many decades, criminals wanting to smuggle contraband into prisons had three simple options – people, the post, or simply throwing parcels over the wall.
In response, authorities have been doing their best to outsmart them by ramping up security checks on parcels sent to inmates, using increasingly sophisticated scanners for visitors, and intensifying efforts to root out corrupt staff.
But a decade ago, a new method emerged on the scene – drones. Inmates and their associates on the outside quickly figured out that the remote-controlled devices being advertised for photography and other legitimate uses could be just as easily loaded up with drugs and flown straight to a cell window. It’s a battle that prison staff are slowly losing.
“As soon as they became commercially available, they were immediately used to fly drugs into prison,” says Tom Wheatley, president of the Prison Governors’ Association. “Various security measures around improving gate security to stop people bringing things in when coming in to visit or work made [conventional] smuggling more difficult, so they looked for other means to do it.”
Drones are certainly less gruesome than some previous methods used to get contraband past security, including dead rats and pigeons that were thrown over fences stuffed with drugs and mobile phones.
A sign informing people not to fly drones outside HMP High Down prison near Banstead in Surrey – PA
The first drones were spotted flying over the walls of prisons in England and Wales in 2014, when four attempts were recorded. The following year 33 incidents were counted, and the rise has been exponential ever since, with drones now believed to be the dominant smuggling method in many prisons.
There were 220 drone sightings in the past year at a single jail, HMP Manchester, prompting a stark warning from the prisons watchdog that the situation was now a “threat to national security”.
HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, Charlie Taylor, said unannounced visits to HMP Manchester and HMP Long Lartin, in Worcestershire, had found “thriving illicit economies of drugs, mobile phones and weapons” among murderers, terror offenders and gang bosses.
Charlie Taylor, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, says drones have become a ‘threat to national security’ – Andrew Crowley
“It is highly alarming that the police and prison service have, in effect, ceded the airspace above two high-security prisons to organised crime gangs which are able to deliver contraband to jails holding extremely dangerous prisoners,” he added.
“The safety of staff, prisoners and ultimately that of the public, is seriously compromised by the failure to tackle what has become a threat to national security.”
The number of drone flights counted by the prison service are believed to be far lower than the real figure, because many go undetected.
Wheatley says gangs organise most deliveries at night, taking advantage of both the cover of darkness and the knowledge that smaller numbers of staff are on duty.
“They will tend to be inside checking on prisoners, not wandering around the grounds looking at the sky,” he adds.
“Prisoners are in their cells at night, so it’s the safest time to deliver packages to a specific person. Phones and drugs tend to be what’s in parcels attached to drones, because both are valuable contraband.
“They are also used for weapons, mainly knives and blades, because the only way of suppliers getting payment is enforcement through violence.”
Some inmates coordinate deliveries with gangs on the outside using illicitly obtained mobile phones to transmit their cell’s precise location, and “even without that, they can describe the location of the cell or organise some sort of signal, like waving a piece of material around”, Wheatley says.
At that point, it’s simply a matter of making sure the prisoner can collect the drone’s payload. In old Victorian prisons, it can be a simple matter of reaching through the gaps in metal bars, while inmates have been frustrating efforts to install new secure windows by burning holes in them.
But drone gangs are not always so subtle. “There have been instances where contraband has dropped from a drone onto an exercise yard full of prisoners in broad daylight, with staff there, and prisoners will fight the staff to stop them getting to it,” Wheatley says. “When staff take control of the situation prisoners have secreted it internally.”
A drone carrying drugs and mobile phones that was seized by police after being seen flying towards HMP Pentonville in London – Metropolitan Police/PA
If prison officers spot drones flying to a particular cell, they will quickly organise a group to enter and search it, but inmates have devised methods to quickly divide and distribute contraband so it cannot be found.
Systems include throwing items to neighbouring cells through windows, sliding them under doors, dangling them between different floors on pieces of string and even transporting them to accomplices by flushing toilets.
Authorities have been trying to fight back with new laws, increased security measures and dozens of convictions for people involved in smuggling, but the drones keep on coming.
In 2015, the Conservative government made it illegal to land a drone inside a prison perimeter, and two years later it set up a “specialist squad” of prison and police officers dedicated to tackling the threat drones posed.
The availability and accessible pricing of drones that can carry heavier ‘payloads’ has concerned authorities
New laws created in 2023 created “no-fly zones” around jails, making it an automatic offence to fly drones within 400 metres of any secure prison or young offender institution in England and Wales.
But Wheatley warns that prison officers cannot report drones if they do not see them, and that the new offence is only “valuable if time and effort is put into enforcing it”.
“This is in many cases serious and organised crime, getting drugs and mobile phones into prison isn’t done by somebody’s mate as a favour, it’s done by gangs who invest significant amounts of money in the technology,” he warns. “They are motivated to overcome whatever security you put in place.”
Authorities are also concerned about the increased availability and falling price of devices that can carry heavier “payloads”, increasing the potential for greater quantities of drugs and more dangerous weapons to reach prisoners.
A single attempted drone delivery intercepted in May 2022 was carrying over £35,000 worth of drugs and mobile phones, and Wheatley warns: “There is no technical reason why, if you can get a large packet of drugs and phones in on a drone, why you can’t get a similar size and weight of package including guns or explosives.
“The reason I’m guessing that hasn’t happened is because it’s not where the money is, and there is no desire for that contraband. But if that changes and prisoners become motivated to get those things inside, that could be a real threat.”
The Ministry of Justice has vowed to continue efforts to tackle drone use and increase prison security, while new CCTV is being installed at HMP Manchester along with netting aiming to stop drones being able to drop off their payloads.
“We are gripping the situation by investing in prison maintenance and security, working with the police and others to tackle serious organised crime, and building more prison places to lock up dangerous criminals,” a spokesperson said.
There were 220 drone sightings in the past year at HMP Manchester – Getty
Greater Manchester Police said it has started a dedicated operation aiming to disrupt gangs using drones to smuggle contraband into jails and that several suspects had been arrested.
“We acknowledge this is a growing risk to us and HM Prison service,” said Detective Superintendent Andy Buckthorpe. “Our work is far from done and we will do whatever we need to tackle this problem.”
But prison officials are not hopeful that the situation will improve any time soon. “We haven’t got a silver bullet to deal with the issue, I see this being around for some time,” Wheatley says.
“The criminals struggle to get contraband in, we make efforts to stop them – it’s an arms race, and it could escalate.”