Drones are delivering contraband to inmates. Prisons are fighting back | CNN

Around 3:30 one morning this winter, officers stationed in the prison yard of South Carolina’s Turbeville Correctional Institution heard a propeller buzzing somewhere above the state prison. One officer quickly recognized the familiar sound and looked toward the sky: it was yet another drone approaching the facility. The drone flew into the yard and dropped a three-foot package before whizzing away, the captain of the drone hunting team for South Carolina’s state prisons told CNN in an interview. The officer ran to secure the package before an inmate could get to it first. Inside, officials found tobacco, marijuana, ecstasy and four phones, which the South Carolina Department of Corrections, or SCDC, estimates are worth a combined $165,700 in the “prison economy.” South Carolina is one of the many states across the country dealing with a persistent and growing problem: Drones are flying onto prison grounds, often in the dark of night, and dropping contraband for inmates – everything from knives, cellphones and escape tools to crab legs, cigarettes and a stuffed toy cat hiding drugs worth thousands of dollars. The issue has become so pervasive that 21 state attorneys gener

May 3, 2026 → May 3, 2026