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Officials at the Lieber Correctional Institution in Ridgeville, South Carolina say that a prisoner escaped by using wire cutters flown in by a drone:
A fugitive South Carolina inmate recaptured in Texas this week had chopped his way through a prison fence using wire cutters apparently dropped by a drone, prison officials said Friday. Jimmy Causey, 46, fled the Lieber Correctional Institution in Ridgeville, S.C., on the evening of July 4th after leaving a paper mache doll in his bed to fool guards into thinking he was asleep. He was not discovered missing until Wednesday afternoon.
[...] The director said he and other officials have sought federal help for years to combat the use of drones to drop contraband into prison. "It's a simple fix," Stirling said. "Allow us to block the signal. Allow us to stop them to have unfettered access ... They are physically incarcerated, but they are not virtually incarcerated." "As long as they have access to cellphones, this is just going to keep on happening and happening and happening," he said, The Post and Courier reported.
Also at LA Times and The Washington Post.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 08 2017, @08:59PM (2 children)
For 11 USD per hour, yes, that's exactly what they do. Occasionally, when they had a bad start of the day at home, they take it out on inmates too. Sometimes they even organize mandatory fight clubs or run protection rackets. They even have the inmates fight turf-wars as proxies for animosity between guards.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Saturday July 08 2017, @10:08PM
In California prison guards make something like $76k per year, plus overtime, which they always use to jack them up to $100k+ per year.
That said, I think they should be paid $minimum_wage * 2.5, but I'm not in charge, just on the hook.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday July 09 2017, @12:27PM
I was bored enough to google and in SC its more like $14/hr. Turnover must be extremely high because the mean is essentially the hiring pay rate although the 75th and 90th percentile and all that is a lot higher. Figure your average guard is an inexperienced underpaid noob although there are occasional lifers or lower level mgmt mis-categorized as guards.
Speaking of inexperienced high turnover underpaid drones, err, guards vs drones, I wonder how much money it costs to pay a guard to smuggle in a wire cutter and tell the boss a drone did it vs the likely enormous expense of actually using a drone.
Its a little better than call center work but not much.
Also google indicates the feds require considerable years of experience and a college degree before you get the feds starting wage, so prison guard is not necessarily an entry level job so comparing a mid-career job to other job fields is kinda "eh".
There's a lot of money in prisons but not for the guards. Its like K12 education or industrial farming, people making lots of money, but not the front line employees. Notice how someone is about to get a bazillion dollar high tech contract for an expensive jammer, compared to a more realistic solution like netting over the facility, at least over the outdoor rec facilities, or having enough guards motivated to do their job.