NSW Prison Staff Want Drone Guns to Stop Contraband Drops

Prisons in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, are dealing with a new and serious threat. Criminals have started using drones to fly drugs over prison walls and drop them to inmates inside. Within just two weeks in October 2024, police made arrests near two separate jails after drone smuggling attempts were discovered.

On October 10, police caught a 35-year-old man near South Coast Correctional Centre in Nowra. Officers spotted the drone by chance and followed it back to the person flying it. A package of drugs had allegedly already been delivered to the prison before the man was arrested.

Two weeks earlier, police arrested two men near the Cooma Correctional Centre on the Far South Coast. They were caught after a failed attempt to drop drugs into the prison by drone. Luckily, the delivery did not succeed that time, but both events put prison officials on high alert.

The NSW government says it is working on buying special drone detection technology for prisons across the state. A spokesperson for Corrective Services Minister Anoulack Chanthivong said organised crime groups are using more advanced drones to try to get around prison security. The government called it an "emerging threat" that needs to be taken seriously.

The main union for NSW prison workers, the Public Service Association, is asking for stronger tools to fight the problem. Union secretary Stewart Little said that at the moment, officers only spotted the drone by luck — they have no reliable way to detect them. He is pushing for prison staff to be given special devices known as "drone guns" that can force a drone to land by blasting it with radio signals.

However, using drone guns is not currently legal in Australia for prison officers. Mr Little said new laws would need to be passed at the federal level before staff could use the technology. He stressed that getting those laws changed is very important: "We're going to need legislative change at the federal level, but we've got to get this technology brought in."

Mr Little also raised a frightening concern about where this problem could lead. He said staff are most worried that someone might eventually use a drone to smuggle a weapon, like a firearm, into a prison. "The last thing you want to see is any sort of weapons, particularly firearms, being brought into a correctional centre," he warned.

The government's specialist working group has identified two types of technology that could help: radio frequency (RF) detection and radar. These systems can spot incoming drones quickly and track them from a distance. A company called DroneShield tested similar technology at an Australian prison in 2021, and it could reportedly detect a drone up to one kilometre away within just one second.

DroneShield confirmed it had trialled its technology at an Australian prison but would not share specific details. The NSW government also refused to say when new technology would be purchased or exactly what would be bought, citing private business reasons. Until new tools are in place, prison staff are on watch and hoping that better solutions arrive before the situation gets worse.