To many people they’re just toys available on the shelves of many big box stores or in warehouses run by their favorite online retailer. But commercially-available drones are proving themselves to be a thorny and troublesome development across the world.

They’re relatively cheap, widely accessible and surprisingly versatile to boot. It’s quickly becoming apparent that a motivated person can find ways to modify the machines to accomplish nearly anything.

For example, during the battle of Mosul, Iraq, ISIS fighters found a way to attach mortar rounds or grenades to drones and connect a catching mechanism to their headlamp systems. Voila: a swarm of tiny aircraft capable of dropping small bombs on coalition forces working to retake the city.

Significantly less sinister but still troubling are U.S. Department of Justice reports that detail how, over the past five years, more than a dozen attempts have been made to smuggle things like drugs, porn, mobile phones and more into federal prisons using drones.

The incidents have occurred at correctional facilities from California to Maryland, including one in South Carolina where a drone carrying wire cutters reportedly helped a prisoner escape. At Mansfield Correctional Institution in Ohio staff members watched a fight break out between dozens of inmates in 2015 after a drone dropped tobacco, marijuana and heroin inside the facility’s perimeter.

But while federal and state legislation has emerged to restrict drone activities around sensitive sites like airports, the issue of no-fly-zones around prisons has been left untouched by most state legislatures — including Pennsylvania’s. Legislation on the issue died last year while waiting for a vote in the Senate, and a similar bill proposed this year by Rep. Jeff Pyle is currently before the Senate’s Judiciary Committee.

So far the lack of regulations hasn’t mattered, and the state’s Department of Corrections said Wednesday that drones haven’t been a problem in or around their facilities.

If the rising number of drone incidents at correctional facilities across the country is any indication, that’s certain to change sooner or later. And the department’s current anti-drone protocols — which amount to reporting a drone sighting, trying to determine its flight path and, if necessary, clearing inmates from outdoor areas — are clearly insufficient.

Less clear is whether pricey anti-drone technology — the kind that can detect and disrupt a drone’s operations electronically — is a realistic or prudent expense for a state that is struggling mightily with its finances.

Instituting real regulations, however, doesn’t cost a dime and should be a no-brainer for our elected officials.

Pyle’s legislation, which not only addresses the prison issue but broader concerns about privacy, is a common sense place to start.