Georgia prison chief tells state lawmakers drones are smuggling deadly contraband into prisons • Georgia Recorder

The Georgia Department of Corrections continues to grapple with a flood of drones used to transport contraband such as drugs, cell phones and possibly even the firearm a Smith State Prison inmate used to kill a food processing plant worker in June.

Department of Corrections Director Tyrone Oliver told a state Senate committee Wednesday that information obtained during the ongoing investigation into the June 16 murder-suicide suggests someone flew a drone to deliver the weapon Jaydrekus Hart used to kill 24-year-old Aramark employee Aureon Grace while she was working in the prison kitchen. Georgia State Prison officials spent several hours testifying Wednesday before a Georgia Senate Facilities Investigation Committee, which is tasked with making recommendations to address problems created by overcrowded and outdated prisons.

According to the Department of Corrections, Hart and Grace had a personal relationship and Hart left a suicide note. Hart was serving a 20-year prison sentence for manslaughter and aggravated assault he committed in Carroll County in 2013.

Drones are increasingly being used to smuggle contraband in Georgia state prisons, leading to increased violence against inmates, correctional officers, and other staff.

The committee's hearing on Wednesday also examined whether aging, dilapidated prisons, staff shortages and other problems may be contributing to the surge in violence at facilities like Smith State Prison, which holds about 1,500 of the state's most dangerous inmates.

During a one-year period ending in June, the Georgia Department of Corrections arrested 69 employees, 204 inmates and 554 civilians and recorded more than 430 reports of drone strikes.

The large number of arrests of staff and the public are related to attempts to bring illegal contraband into prisons. According to the DOC, nearly 15,000 cell phones were seized in Georgia prisons between June 2023 and June 2024, double the number of 2019.

Oliver said that even when prisons are at full capacity, inmates often resort to methods such as causing unrest to distract officers and smuggle in contraband.

Oliver said the increase in problems correlates with the rising number of inmates convicted of violent crimes.

“Whenever we built prisons back then, it was conducive to the population we were potentially trying to house, but not anymore. That's one of the reasons we have to secure them,” Oliver said. “And then there's the ongoing maintenance. They're constantly finding ways to get to the infrastructure, make all kinds of weapons, get on the roof, whatever.”

A $17.5 million increase in this year's capital maintenance budget will help fund some much-needed repairs and improvements to prison infrastructure, Oliver said.

“The majority of our contraband that is recovered is due to our outdated infrastructure,” he said. “Sometimes they jump out of the locks, go through the pipe channels, climb up to the roof of the prison and recover the contraband.”

There has also been an increased emphasis on prison officials conducting random searches for contraband in prisons. The number of “prison raids” has increased significantly from 70 in 2019 to 287 this year, Oliver said.

“It's just a constant battle that we're fighting. Most inmates now aren't trying to compromise with as many staff members as possible because they say they can get everything they want from the air or by drone,” Oliver said.

Senator Kim Jackson, a Democrat from Stone Mountain, said that while there is much discussion about the need to repair aging and deteriorating facilities, she wondered why corrections officials did not consider staffing levels a bigger factor.

“Maybe our prisons were never at full capacity, maybe I'm wrong,” Jackson said. “How do crime and contraband problems look today compared to a time and a year when we were better staffed?”

Senator Randy Roberson, a Republican from Cataula, said it was a sad situation that part of the blame for the smuggling of guns, drugs, cell phones and other contraband into prisons was because inmates could take advantage of the poor conditions in the buildings to get the contraband.

“When I think about people having to use the infrastructure of the building to get to the roof, it sounds very much like a Shawshank fantasy,” Robertson said, referring to the 1994 film “The Shawshank Redemption.” “The fact that we still have to worry about people using our own buildings against us to bring stuff in, especially now that we have an incident where they brought in a deadly weapon and used it against an employee, that is concerning.”