$10M for drone units in budget; devices to be used in crime hotspots, curb prison breaches

Drones are set to play a greater role in crime pre­ven­tion, law en­force­ment and pub­lic safe­ty, with the Gov­ern­ment al­lo­cat­ing $10 mil­lion to es­tab­lish a new Air Guard Drone Unit and up­grade the Po­lice Ser­vice’s Air Sup­port and Drone Unit.

The tech­nol­o­gy is ex­pect­ed to help of­fi­cers mon­i­tor crime hotspots, im­prove traf­fic man­age­ment, and strength­en ef­forts to de­tect and pre­vent prison breach­es in­volv­ing the il­le­gal de­liv­ery of con­tra­band.

It comes as the Prison Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion re­port­ed well over 100 drone breach­es at the na­tion’s prison fa­cil­i­ties so far this year.