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Exclusive: tenfold increase in drone incidents since 2020 leads MPs to call for urgent action over security concerns
Prisons will need more money to combat the rapid rise in drones delivering drugs, the head of an influential Commons committee has said, as figures showed the number of aerial incursions predicted to have tripled in two years.
A freedom of information request by the Guardian found there were 1,296 drone incidents at prisons in England and Wales in the 10 months to the end of October 2024, a tenfold increase since 2020.
The Labour chair of the Commons justice committee, Andy Slaughter, said the figures should “set alarm bells ringing” about prison security.
“We wouldn’t be having these increases in incidents if the Prison Service was on top of it. Clearly they are playing catch up,” he said.
“It’s particularly galling that organised crime and whoever is operating the drones are effectively steps ahead … of the people who are supposed to be keeping prisons secure.”
With an average of about 130 drone incidents a month, the number of incursions is expected to have increased to more than 1,550 by the end of 2024 – more than triple the 478 incidents in 2022.
Given that many drone deliveries happen at night under the cover of darkness, the true figure is believed to be far higher.
HM chief inspector of prisons, Charlie Taylor, said last month that the surge in the use of large unmanned aerial vehicles was his “number one concern” and had increased the possibility that firearms would be used to settle turf wars or in attempts to escape.
A recent report by Taylor’s inspectors into HMP Garth, near Leyland in Lancashire, said so many drones were flying to the prison at night to deliver contraband to cell windows that an inmate had compared it to an airport.
The drugs trade in prisons is so lucrative that gangs are headhunting highly skilled drone pilots from the non-criminal world to ferry their cargo to cell windows.
The more sophisticated drones, worth several thousand pounds, are about a metre wide and equipped with thermal imaging, allowing them to transport several kilogrammes of illicit goods under the cover of darkness.
The scale of aerial deliveries continued to grow in 2024 despite laws introduced last January that made it a criminal offence to fly drones within 400 metres of any closed prison or young offender institution in England and Wales. Drone operators that break the rules could face fines of up to £2,500, while those found smuggling illicit items face up to 10 years in prison.
Some prisons have introduced counter-drone technology to detect when unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are nearby, but few if any are thought to actively block the devices from approaching.
The crumbling state of many prisons has made it easier to make often-brazen deliveries to cells, where inmates use broomsticks and other devices to “fish” in contraband through easily breached windows.
The cross-party Commons justice committee launched an inquiry last month into tackling drugs in prisons, with one area of focus the sharp increase in drone deliveries.
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Slaughter described the incursions as a “pretty fundamental breach of security” that would need more money to fix.
“There’s going to be cost to it, whether that comes out of the increased maintenance budgets or whether it has to come from other means,” he said. “It would be a shame if you’re diverting funds from other things such as rehabilitation, staffing, conditions and maintenance generally in prisons, because they are in an appalling state.
“But … before you do anything else, you have to make sure that your prisoners are secure and so this is going to have to be a priority.”
Slaughter said his inquiry would examine whether sophisticated technology such as signal blockers, which would prevent drones from entering prison airspace, could be used.
“Within a short period of time we have to have a solution. You do feel that prisons, as so often, are a Cinderella service, and if this was an issue – as it has been – around an airport or a military facility it would be dealt with,” he said.
A government spokesperson said: “The availability of drugs and other illicit items in prisons is evidence of the crisis in our prisons that the new government inherited.
“We are working with the police to deter, detect and disrupt the growing illegal use of drones around prisons. Our Crime in Prisons taskforce will bear down on drugs in jails further, including tackling serious and organised crime.”
Prisons in England and Wales record rapid rise in drones delivering drugs
