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Government The Almighty Buck Technology

Drones Cost $28,000 Per Arrest, On Average 280

Posted by Soulskill from the tag-and-release-even-more-expensive dept.
mpicpp sends this report from CNN: They are sleek, mostly silent converted weapons of war: Drones used by the Border Patrol to scan the skies in the empty deserts of the Southwest to spot illegal immigrants and then, if things work out, have agents arrest them. That's the idea, and the agents who use them say the drones give them a vantage point they never had before. Flying at 18,000 feet, the drones view the landscape below, lock onto potential suspects crossing the Arizona desert, and agents on the ground move into make the arrests. But it's outrageously expensive: $28,000 for a single arrest.
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Drones Cost $28,000 Per Arrest, On Average More

Drones Cost $28,000 Per Arrest, On Average

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  • Is that really a lot? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Mal-2 ( 675116 ) on Thursday February 26, 2015 @09:19AM (#49136475) Homepage Journal

    Let's assume for a moment that they're serious about deporting people.

    What's the cost if they get through, and have to be tracked down by traditional methods? What's the cost of putting more people there to achieve the same level of effectiveness? What's the cost of flying conventional aircraft to do the job?

    When pitted against those methods by comparison, $28,000 might actually not be all that bad.

    • Re:Is that really a lot? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 ) on Thursday February 26, 2015 @09:25AM (#49136523) Homepage Journal

      well considering that minimum wage for yearly is something around $22,283 then yeah 28k is a bit expensive. let's say that the employer costs are double what the employee gets.

      yes, you could hire guys with motorbikes and have them drive around 6 months to catch one guy per one hired guy EASY.

      it's friggin expensive thats what it is. besides, borders aren't that hard to keep. for some reason russia-finnish border keeps people from getting over it illegally very, very tight - and it's wilderness for most part. though russians are very very keen to keep Russians from coming over..

      • well considering that minimum wage for yearly is something around $22,283 then yeah 28k is a bit expensive. let's say that the employer costs are double what the employee gets.

        How is minimum wage relevant in this topic? Generally when you are guarding international borders you don't pay your people so little that they actively seek out bribes. 28K an arrest in the infancy of a program like this is astoundingly cheap and keep in mind that this should include the cost of the manpower behind it so they're washing in some of the already existing overhead to hype up the story. Even if this was 10 years from now after they have had time to discover and implement new inefficiencies in t

        • How is minimum wage relevant in this topic?

          For starters, it would be more efficient to just provide minimum wage jobs to the immigrants, even if the entirety of their employment is to undo the work of other immigrants. However, there's a great likelihood that they will actually do something useful in the course of work, meaning that we might even be able to pay them a US living wage.

          Look up what it costs on average to arrest a local drug pusher sometime.

          Perhaps you might want to pick a better example th

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Qzukk ( 229616 )

        borders aren't that hard to keep.

        Isn't that what East Germany said? Walls, landmines, razor wire, snipers, papers please... and they still leaked like a sieve.

        • It leaked, but I wouldn't say like a sieve. I would say like a fishing net with a few small holes.

      • well considering that minimum wage for yearly is something around $22,283

        This is why geek businesses fail.

        If you're paying someone 22k a year in paychecks, you are almost certainly spending closer to $44k/year to actually have them as an employee. Assuming you had no office/uniform/tools to buy and maintain for them, at a bare minimum, you're still looking at $30k/year or so just due to taxes. Remember, your employe pays some taxes for you as well as what comes out of your paycheck that you see.

        And then theres the whole ACA thing now, which is another cost, worst still, becaus

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ron_ivi ( 607351 )

        well considering that minimum wage for yearly is something around $22,283 then yeah 28k is a bit expensive

        Ah - so instead of deporting them, it'd be cheaper to just hire them :-).

    • Re:Is that really a lot? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by userw014 ( 707413 ) on Thursday February 26, 2015 @09:44AM (#49136689) Homepage

      The math for calculating this cost is deceptively simple-minded - and the article doesn't offer any way to compare it with other methods.

      A (very) brief search for the US Border Patrol budget and apprehensions found these:

      • http://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/documents/BP%20Total%20Apps%2C%20Mexico%2C%20OTM%20FY2000-FY2014_0.pdf
      • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Customs_and_Border_Protection

      or FY2014 budget of $13.6 Billion and 486,651 apprehensions.

      That gives an average cost of $27946/apprehension for the entire organization. My (very, very) simple minded calculation is remarkably similar to the Office of Inspector General's figures for just the drone program. If anything, it shows that just introducing drones doesn't change the cost-per-apprehension of the Border Patrol. A more important question would be whether cost-per-apprehension is even a valid metric for the Border Patrol.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        It doesn't yet. Presumably you'd need to fire a bunch of the patrollers whose job is done better by one guy with a drone before you saw any financial savings. That's likely to be unpopular though, so instead you argue increased efficacy.

      • Your math is comparing apples to oranges.

        Specifically you are comparing the cost to apprehend PLUS all the fixed costs of the agency vs the cost to apprehend with a drone.

        IN reality, the cost per deportation is estimated at LESS than 15,000 per deportation - including apprehension costs. Clearly the fixed costs of the agency are far greater than you realize. Effectively, the drone program more than doubles the cost to apprehend.

        • Your math is comparing apples to oranges.
          Specifically you are comparing the cost to apprehend PLUS all the fixed costs of the agency vs the cost to apprehend with a drone.

          That's actually exactly how the drone costs were calculated [dhs.gov]. They took the cost to operate the drones, then added all the fixed costs of the personnel, equipment, and miscellaneous agency overhead. That inflated the drone costs from $2,468 per hour to $12,255 per hour. It's actually your deportation cost which is missing some of the

      • Whoops, in my other reply I left out the other stuff. The Border Patrol does not merely apprehend. It builds and maintains the fences. It supports custom agents. It runs undercover operations. It pays people to investigate claims. It also holds people prisoner, pays agents to testify, has lawyers to try prisoners, as well as a bunch of other fixed costs.

        In fact, the cost is NOT simple, you are simply too ignorant to realize how complex the calculation is. Your math is way way off.

        The drones a

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dAzED1 ( 33635 )

        "A more important question would be whether cost-per-apprehension is even a valid metric for the Border Patrol. "

        :blink: That is probably the only valid metric for them. Well that and the accuracy of the determined status, and the treatment of those apprehended...

    • We need to consider a few things:

        - What sort of drones are we talking about? For example those huge military drones that probably use as much fuel as a helicopter?
        - What is the relative cost compared to the previous method?
        - What are the cost break downs?

      It is a huge amount of money and seems like they need to change there costing model.

      • One of the big advantages of drones is that they are far more fuel efficient. The predator has a loiter time of 24 hours I believe, and the much larger and more expensive global hawk can do 28 hours. You'd be hard pressed to find a helicopter with that kind of fuel capacity. Helicopters are inefficient because instead of a large fixed wing they have several smaller wings that are rotated at very high speed. Planes are more efficient because their fixed wing can generate lift from the drones momentum. Predat

    • You are correct that they SHOULD have listed that information.

      But the actual cost per arrest to deport is about less than $1,000, from what I understand.

      The average cost to arrest, try and deport an illegal immigrant is only $12,000 (source = http://blog.chron.com/immigrat... [chron.com] )

      So the cost of $28k is ridiculous.

    • Let's assume for a moment that they're serious about deporting people.

      Why? What evidence do you have?

    • 28k is just bullshit.

      If you bought a million dollar drone (they don't) and only caught 80 people that it gets credit for (which is not the case), then your at 25k per drone. Thats assuming you discard it after catching those 80 people (they don't)

  • Wrong kind of drone? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by leonbev ( 111395 ) on Thursday February 26, 2015 @09:21AM (#49136493) Journal

    Instead of using a multi million dollar Predator drone to scan the border, perhaps they should be using something smaller and cheaper like a beefed up version of a Parrot drone instead.

    Do we really need something that flies at 18,000 feet to patrol the border?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by TWX ( 665546 )
      That's what I was thinking. Equipping every border patrol unit with a commercial version of the ubiquitous quad-copter with preprogrammed flight rules (ie, can't cross the border itself) and with some sanity checking (all transmitted footage is logged elsewhere too, to reduce abuse) would probably be a hell of a lot cheaper and would give officers significantly more 'eyes' where they need them.

      • Years ago they were talking about teathering balloons and blimps to reach the same objective. I guess drones are much cooler.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jandrese ( 485 )
          If you drive near the border you will see Aerostats already flying. The downside of Aerostats is that they're in a more or less fixed position so people can simply go around.

      • That's what I was thinking. Equipping every border patrol unit with a commercial version of the ubiquitous quad-copter

        For a given payload, rotary-wing aircraft consume about 2-4x as much fuel [stackexchange.com] as fixed-wing aircraft. The quad-copter is actually an even bigger disadvantage since it's got 4 engines vs 1 on the Predator. (Fewer engines = more efficient. It's why airlines have been transitioning to twin-engine airliners.)

        Also, if you read some of the linked docs in TFA, the $28,000 per arrest figure is the

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by OzPeter ( 195038 )

      Instead of using a multi million dollar Predator drone to scan the border, perhaps they should be using something smaller and cheaper like an office drone

      I hear that office drones basically do anything for money as long as they can play candy crush or angry birds

      • You could pay someone minimum wage to fly cheap drones, with explosives, into border crossers.

        You could have a variety of drones even. Wedge shaped ones for slicing through people, large heavy ones for crushing people, ones that break up into smaller drones for cluster bombing.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by njnnja ( 2833511 )

          Well you don't even need drones for that. Just a big enough slingshot. The office drones in gp post would probably be really good at it

        • Why pay minimum wage? I bet we could outsource that work to a 3rd world country and only pay a 1/10 of minimum wage. It is not like the pilots would have to be physically here in the US to run them remotely.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by Jeremi ( 14640 )

            I bet we could outsource that work to a 3rd world country and only pay a 1/10 of minimum wage. It is not like the pilots would have to be physically here in the US to run them remotely.

            Good idea! We can hire drone pilots for cheap in, say, Pakistan. I can't think of anything that could possibly go wrong with this plan. ;^)

            • Better yet, produce a game for Xbox or PS4 in which the players are operating drones and think that they're playing a game when they're really fragging people on the ground. You won't have to pay them- they'd pay for the privilege to play.

            • Why not increase the number of H1-B visas for people to do this?

          • Illegal immigrants would be more than happy to monitor themselves for that amount of money! And you will not need a drone!

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by TWX ( 665546 )

            Why pay minimum wage? I bet we could outsource that work to a 3rd world country and only pay a 1/10 of minimum wage. It is not like the pilots would have to be physically here in the US to run them remotely.

            Damn lag...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by wcrowe ( 94389 )

      That's kind of what I was thinking. The border isn't going anywhere, so since the observation area is pretty static, it seems like a string of observation blimps would work just about as well.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      Probably, yes. If you can station a high endurance drone up high it can cover more ground than a bunch of little ones, and only needs one pilot and a launch and recovery team at an airport somewhere. The little ones each need a launch and recovery team. The secret to making it cost effective is to fire a bunch of patrol teams that it replaces.

    • Don't be silly!

      Have you ever seen the view from a tall building? How about from an airplane? From 18k feet you can see a lot of ground. Predator drones can stay up for many hours (maybe even days at a time).

      Parrot drones fly at rock-throwing altitudes for about 10 minutes at a time. How many thousands of them (and people to operate them) do you think it would take to view the same area as one predator flying at 18k feet?

  • Getting lots of money to War, Inc. is the *goal*; the way it's dressed up doesn't really matter that much.

  • Scanning the skies? (Score:5, Funny)

    by joelgrimes ( 130046 ) on Thursday February 26, 2015 @09:28AM (#49136539)

    scan the skies in the empty deserts of the Southwest to spot illegal immigrants

    Hey guys, I think I see the problem.

    • If they're empty, why are we scanning them?!

      • To make sure they stay empty and keep them that way.

        Actually, skme of this is more humanitarian than authoritarian. A lot of these places in the desert will ohtfight kill yoh before you can cross it if you are not prepared.

    • scan the skies in the empty deserts of the Southwest to spot illegal immigrants

      Hey guys, I think I see the problem.

      Why not? Aliens usually come in Unidentified Flying Objects...

  • except for the military, naturally. Republicans love them some war boners.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mi ( 197448 )

      Government spending money on anything is terrible except for the military, naturally

      Exactly. Because military is one of the very few things, which is the government's actual responsibility per the Constitution.

      Most of the rest is just that — unconstitutional:

      I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.

      - James Madison [wikiquote.org]

      Republicans love them some war boners.

      The lost [npr.org]

      • The lost [npr.org] "War on Poverty", which we've been fighting for the last 50 years, has cost us — inflation-adjusted — $22 trillion or, roughly three times more than all actual wars combined since founding of the Republic [infowars.com]

        Anyone who thinks that the US has spent less than 7 trillion dollars on war, total, and adjusted for inflation, is cherry-picking from a very conservative data set. No wonder the linked article doesn't give a citation for that figure.

        • Dear Cthulhu, I just noticed that he cited /Infowars/ and expected people to take it seriously. Infowars, founded by Alex Jones, who never met a conspiracy theory he didn't like.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by mi ( 197448 )

            Dear Cthulhu, I just noticed that he cited /Infowars/ and expected people to take it seriously.

            Seriously? You are disputing the figure, because I cited Infowars? Ok, how about these guys [dailykos.com]? True to form, and with the customary wit and sophistication, the DailyKos are "killing the zombie lies about the war on poverty" — but even they cite and do not dispute the cost of the war: $22 trillion in today's (well, last year's) dollars.

            • You may find it hard to believe, but I don't count Kos as a reliable source either. They're just as interested in pushing a political POV as Infowars.

              Given your inability to pick any sort of reliable politically-neutral source, I'm going to assume you're a fucktard and ignore you.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mi ( 197448 )

          Anyone who thinks that the US has spent less than 7 trillion dollars on war, total, and adjusted for inflation, is cherry-picking from a very conservative data set.

          Yes, yes, anyone who disagrees with you is a moron, right.

          One would have thought, Hans Christian Andersen took care of this kind of argument [wikipedia.org], but an opinion of a long-dead White dude does not matter to you, does it?

          No wonder the linked article doesn't give a citation for that figure.

          Well, this one [dailykos.com] does — and though it disputes a number of

      • Please, don't hate.

        Ho ho ho, that's rich coming from you.

  • Wrong kind of metric... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by fraxinus-tree ( 717851 ) on Thursday February 26, 2015 @09:33AM (#49136577)
    The metric "$ per suspect catched" is pretty much meaningless. If they have 1 suspect for the whole year and do arrest him, the cost per arrest will be their yearly budget - and guess what? The border still needs to be guarded. The important numbers would be the the cost increase/decrease vs drone-less operation and the percent of trespassers missed.

    • Re:Wrong kind of metric... (Score:5, Funny)

      by cdrudge ( 68377 ) on Thursday February 26, 2015 @09:46AM (#49136705) Homepage

      The important numbers would be ...the percent of trespassers missed

      I wish my performance review would have a category of percent of undiscovered bugs.

    • Yes, they presented it in a poor way. But no it is not meaningless, if the article had been written well. You are correct they need to give comparison, but not just that one.

      Specifically, it could have said:

      Drone cost to apprehend: $28,000

      Piloted aircraft cost to apprehend: $15,000

      Piloted Boat cost to apprehend: $10,000

      Land Vehicle cost to apprehend: $1,000

      Foot agent cost to apprehend: $1,500

      If the article had done this then we could have easily said no drones, piloted aircraft only AND limit the

  • ...considering we spent around 250,000 rounds of ammo per kill in Iraqistan.

  • Yeah, but... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by StikyPad ( 445176 )

    Can you really put a price on oppression? Not everything has to be about the bottom line.

  • You know if you just start putting fining... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Bonzoli ( 932939 ) on Thursday February 26, 2015 @10:23AM (#49137063)
    If we(all of us) stop employing the illegal immigrants they will stop jump, tunneling, bussing, boating, and swimming to the US. How about instead of buying guns and drones we set up databases and fine the companies and people employing folks illegally. Its simple.

    I lived in Nevada and the landlord used to complain every day about all the illegals in the area. I got frustrated with her one day and stated if you stop employing them to paint, do yard work, and cook they would all leave or at least stop coming here.
    Farmers need some method to get folks willing to help to the farms, that system has to be in place along side the other ones.
    Once the Nancy pelosi's and others employing them as maids and gardeners get fined and put in prison this will end. You will never stop this with drones or guns. Stop the Money and you stop the problem. At this point in time, I'd jump the fence and take the chance just like they are in their positions.
    Taking a vacation to america to have a baby has to end also. Its an archaic method that has to stop.

  • But drones are so kewl (Score:5, Interesting)

    by wcrowe ( 94389 ) on Thursday February 26, 2015 @10:24AM (#49137083)

    At first glance I was prepared to say, "Expensive compared to what?" I was initially prepared to support the drone program. But when I read TFA and got some details, I think it would be fair to say that this drone program is something of a failure.

    The border is always in the same place, and therefore the same areas are being patrolled. You don't need a drone to do that. Couldn't you practically accomplish the same thing with observation blimps at a much lower cost? Sure, it doesn't quite have the same "cool" factor, but I would wager it could get the job done.

    • I don't think it's about the "cool" factor as much as the fact that the same people that own the military industry also own the politicians who make these decisions.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      $28,000 per arrest could be cheap compared to the alternatives [zdnet.com]. You can use as many or as few drones to cover a given area as you need to maintain an acceptable captur rate. And drones can be moved more easiy than stuff that's fixed or tied to ground facilities.

  • If we are going to do numbers that way..... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by kosh271 ( 2036124 ) on Thursday February 26, 2015 @10:38AM (#49137233)
    Should we start analyzing the US military's cost per kill of enemy combatants last year?
    • Since our bombs are more valuable than most of what we are blowing up, it probably would make us rethink our policies, or we'd just pay private contractors who would slaughter entire villages of innocent civilians to buff their numbers.

  • Take the development cost plus all of the manufacturing costs and divide by the number of arrests so far....

    So with every arrest, the average price decreases! Let's see it in 10 years.

  • Actual Cost (Score:3)

    by Infiniti2000 ( 1720222 ) on Thursday February 26, 2015 @01:25PM (#49139109)
    I did some calculations and I'd like a critical review. My disagreement with the number is that they are including the price of the drones in the first year operation. I don't think that's a valid comparison to cost per apprehension. Thus, I would like to know the total operational cost, which is number of hours times cost per hour. The number of hours from the report is calculation as 22% of the goal of 16hrs/day for 365 days (or 1284.8 hours). The cost per hour calculated by OIG is $12,255. Thus, a total cost of about $15.7M. Divide that by 2,272 apprehensions for an actual cost of $6,930.12 per apprehension.

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