Prisoners Devise Ingenious Porn Contraband Delivery

Somehow, Amazon overlooked a potential test market.

According to the Washington Post, drone prison drops have become their own sinister cottage industry.

“Last year, there was a melee at an Ohio prison after a drone dropped heroin into the exercise yard,” Michael S. Rosenwald wrote for the Post. “In April, security cameras at a London prison recorded a drone delivering drugs directly to an inmate’s window. And in Western Maryland earlier this year, prosecutors convicted a recently released inmate and a prisoner serving a life sentence on charges of attempted drug distribution and delivery of contraband after they completed several nighttime missions netting them $6,000 per drop in product sales.”

No one can fault the “legitimate businessmen” for their financial model. The barrier to entry is low, since the most popular drones for the job are the same inexpensive toys with which children of all ages terrorize their families, strangers on the street, the neighbor’s poodle, and somewhat-too-imaginative people wearing tinfoil hats. The gig doesn’t require warehousing inventory, so overhead is almost non-existent.

Plus, the employees don’t demand benefits or complain about working conditions. Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift delivery of illicit goods.

While not exactly amused by the new workaround for correctional institution rules, prosecutors do seem to be intrigued by the science-fiction twist. The assistant state’s attorney who prosecuted the Maryland miscreants told Rosenwald the case was “one of the most interesting ones I’ve ever handled.”

The delivery service adds a new measure of complexity to the work of prison staff. After all, guards presumably don’t have prisoners’ copious free time to watch do-it-yourself TV shows and geek movies or read news about the latest technological developments in consumer products.

As new waves tend to do, the prison gadget underground has sparked a counter-trend: Another cottage industry devoted to drone contravention has sprung up, attracting some very heavy hitters. “Security consultants,” counter-terrorism experts and former military personnel all want a piece of the action.

It should be noted that the drone threat extends to more than merely sex-starved jailbirds. Toy drones also have become legitimate weapons in the hands of evildoers. Because they’re relatively silent, easily fly under the radar and are not usually prone to ratting out their accomplices, drones make compelling couriers for small but potentially deadly packages. That’s no laughing matter.

Still, it’s good to know porn still inspires adaptive technology every once in a while.