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.

While geo-fenc­ing has been con­sid­ered, Seep­er­sad sug­gest­ed this or oth­er cost-ef­fec­tive op­tions, in­clud­ing fre­quen­cy-block­ing sys­tems that pre­vent drones from op­er­at­ing with­out dis­rupt­ing le­git­i­mate com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Ex­ist­ing tools in­clude Drone Geo-fenc­ing, RF jam­mers, drone de­tec­tion radar, net guns, and in­ter­cep­tor drones, he said.

“If you put things like that in place, you know it will com­plete­ly elim­i­nate the prob­lem, so we do need to think about tech­no­log­i­cal so­lu­tions to prob­lems. They al­ready ex­ist out there. It is a mat­ter of just de­cid­ing which one and putting it in place,” Seep­er­sad said.

In a TV in­ter­view on Mon­day, Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der said crim­i­nals at­tach ropes, some­times over 300 feet long, to drones to de­liv­er con­tra­band. He said cig­a­rettes sell for up to $800 per pack in­side pris­ons and sug­gest­ed le­gal­is­ing them to re­duce smug­gling. He said bud­get af­ter bud­get, noth­ing was done about is­sues in the prison, but his Gov­ern­ment will put the prison back on track.

Yes­ter­day, Seep­er­sad said catch­ing smug­glers would be more ef­fec­tive than in­creas­ing penal­ties. He said con­tra­band thrives due to high de­mand and prof­itabil­i­ty, as al­co­hol, cig­a­rettes, and phones are il­le­gal but can fetch hefty prices in jail.

Seep­er­sad not­ed that mo­bile phones serve mixed pur­pos­es. While in­mates some­times use them to con­tact loved ones and main­tain vi­tal so­cial bonds, oth­ers ex­ploit them for or­gan­ised crime.

“I would say some kind of con­trol sys­tem should be put in place, and some of the pris­ons do have pay­phones or some kind of sys­tem should be put in place, whether it is phones with cards, etc, but all mon­i­tored to en­sure they are not used for il­le­gal pur­pos­es,” he said.

He warned that or­gan­ised prison groups use phones for “ne­far­i­ous pur­pos­es,” high­light­ing the SoE was sparked by co­or­di­nat­ed threats against Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters. In­de­pen­dence Day events were can­celled as a re­sult, forc­ing the Prison Ser­vice to tight­en cell­phone con­trol.

Mean­while, POA pres­i­dent Gor­don said drones are a se­ri­ous con­cern, fre­quent­ly fly­ing over the Port-of-Spain Prison and MSP. He re­called per­son­nel at Teteron Bar­racks, Ch­aguara­mas, al­so in­ter­cept­ed one af­ter high-risk pris­on­ers from the MSP were trans­ferred there at the start of the State of Emer­gency in Ju­ly.

Speak­ing on CNC3’s Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day, Gor­don said tech­nol­o­gy is ad­vanc­ing at a crazy rate, and the POA seems hard-pressed to keep pace with it. He said of­fi­cers de­tect drones but the fre­quen­cy of in­cur­sions makes it dif­fi­cult to stop all de­liv­er­ies. He said the as­so­ci­a­tion has long ad­vo­cat­ed for coun­ter­mea­sures such as ge­ofenc­ing and drone guns, which are al­ready used in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

Al­so ad­dress­ing the is­sue, for­mer Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les crit­i­cised Min­is­ter Alexan­der for mak­ing “un­ver­i­fied state­ments” which of­ten turn out to be “un­true.” Gon­za­les said sim­i­lar con­tra­band seizures oc­curred ear­li­er this year and last one was long be­fore Alexan­der as­sumed of­fice.

“Some of the op­er­a­tions were re­port­ed in the me­dia, and a num­ber of op­er­a­tions were re­port­ed to the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil and in­ter­nal­ly with our na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, since of­ten­times it may not be pru­dent to re­port on these mat­ters based on in­tel­li­gence in­for­ma­tion. The Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty should sim­ply check his facts,” Gon­za­les said.

He added that in­tel­li­gence agen­cies, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice and the Prison Ser­vice have pre­vi­ous­ly col­lab­o­rat­ed to seize drones, in­clud­ing cas­es re­sult­ing in suc­cess­ful pros­e­cu­tions.