Lebanon and Warren Correctional Institutions in Southwest Ohio will begin a six-month pilot program next month when officials send a blimp-like drone into the sky to watch over prisoners. This past week, prisoners likely caught their first gander of the unmanned balloons, as advance testing took place from Oct. 1 – 7.
The blimp thing is called an “aerostat” — specifically in this case a tethered balloon that features a hi-def/infrared camera. The all-seeing eye couldn’t be timelier, as Ohio has seen a series of recent prison escapes (not the least of which saw TJ Lane apprehended in some woods carrying a pitchfork).
Few guidelines or rules have been publicly released w/r/t how this measure will be implemented. (Who will watch the video feed?)
Ohio is the first state in the U.S. to experiment with this technology within its corrections department.
This article appears in Oct 8-14, 2014.
If the cost of Manpower was more reasonable then people could be hired…. As it stands the cost of the Labor is just way to HIGH…