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Act­ing Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Hay­den Forde has ex­pressed sup­port for Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der’s pro­pos­al to de­ploy mem­bers of the De­fence Force out­side prison fa­cil­i­ties across the coun­try.

Forde said the ini­tia­tive, if im­ple­ment­ed, would not on­ly en­hance the safe­ty of prison of­fi­cers and the pub­lic but al­so as­sist in coun­ter­ing the grow­ing threat of drones be­ing used to smug­gle con­tra­band in­to cor­rec­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions.

“De­pend­ing on how per­sons are de­ployed, the perime­ter may not just be around the prison but fur­ther afield, where per­sons may be op­er­at­ing drones, and that can be a ma­jor de­ter­rent for drone pi­lots that they may not want to come close to the pris­ons to op­er­ate these drones.”