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De­spite cell jam­mers and tight­ened se­cu­ri­ty, crim­i­nals are us­ing drones to by­pass T&T’s pris­ons of­fi­cials, smug­gling cig­a­rettes, phones and drugs in­to the sys­tem. This sit­u­a­tion has prompt­ed ex­perts to call for ad­vanced tech­no­log­i­cal de­fences for the coun­try’s pris­ons.

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Randy Seep­er­sad and Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (POA) pres­i­dent Ger­ard Gor­don says the coun­try must in­vest in drone de­tec­tion and in­ter­cep­tion sys­tems to com­bat the grow­ing threat. Their warn­ing fol­lows Mon­day’s ar­rest of three men at­tempt­ing to de­liv­er con­tra­band in­to the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison (MSP) us­ing a drone.

Seep­er­sad yes­ter­day said while pris­ons have cell jam­mers, smug­glers’ evolv­ing tac­tics re­quire stronger sur­veil­lance and laws re­strict­ing drone ac­tiv­i­ty near fa­cil­i­ties. Drones pose a par­tic­u­lar chal­lenge since any­one, in­clud­ing chil­dren, can op­er­ate them. Greater vig­i­lance, le­gal re­stric­tions on drone prox­im­i­ty, and neu­tral­i­sa­tion mea­sures are es­sen­tial, he said.