Cruise Ships Don't Have to Report Crimes

by Michelle Says So | May 27, 2008 at 11:15 am | 1361 views | 15 comments | 24 recommendations

Yet another saga of 'the blame game' for cruise ship "accidents". Deaths, assaults, robbery, drugging, rapes... Who is to blame? The passengers themselves? The cruise ships with their obvious lack of safety or concern, and their non-obligation to report crimes? Cruise ships don't want to hurt their tourism...so of course they are going to keep mum about crimes, mishaps and controversies.

And in Mindy Jordan's case, I highly doubt she "fell" off the ship on her own doing. Is the FBI covering up for the cruise line? When will the public get to see the surveillance tape? Bring out the facts and let the public make the decision of whether it was an accident or not.

If you believe that cruise ships are safe and the business of tourism is all about the safety and happiness of their passengers and/or visitors, think again. Read this link (International Cruise Victims) and then make an educated decision. What are these companies and people in charge trying to hide?

"It's all about the "Benjamins"....bottom line.

The death of Mindy Jordan who fell from a cruise ship has recast a spotlight on an industry that has been criticized in recent years for its handling of onboard passenger mishaps.
Industry analysts say the public's fascination with such incidents is out of proportion to their occurence and may stem from the exotic nature of cruise ships, often described as international "floating cities."

Cruises are the safest vacation options available, analysts say, and most incidents are caused by passengers' own behavior.

That seems to be the case with Mindy Jordan, 46, of Pine Hill, who fell overboard while attempting to climb from the balcony of her stateroom to an adjacent balcony, according to the Norwegian Cruise Line.

But in recent years, critics of the industry have said the cruise lines do a poor job handling shipboard crimes and other major incidents. Some have accused the companies of covering up incidents and distorting crime statistics.

Ross Klein of the Memorial University of Newfoundland's school of social work has tracked cruise ship mishaps. According to his Web site, 99 people have gone overboard since 2000, including 22 in 2006 and 20 in 2007.

About 13 million people, 10.6 million of them Americans, went on a cruise last year, according to an industry expert.

Cruise lines are not required to report crime statistics against U.S. citizens to the FBI and have been reluctant to provide the data to outsiders, said Ken Carver, who co-founded the group International Cruise Victims after his daughter went missing on a ship in 2004.

"No one knows what the crime rates are because no one can get to the information," he said.

He pointed to congressional testimony from industry executives that 178 passengers on North American cruises had reported being sexually assaulted between 2003 and 2005.

But one cruise line, Royal Caribbean, said in internal documents turned over in a civil suit that at least 273 of its passengers reported sexual incidents in a shorter period of time.

Check out my previous posts about the perils of cruise ships:

http://www.nowpublic.com/part_1_2_peril_cruise_paradise

http://www.nowpublic.com/part_2_peril_cruise_paradise

http://www.nowpublic.com/cruise_ship_death_update_dianne_brimble_murder_charges_be_filed

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/carnival-cruise-relaxing-vacation-or-predator-jungle

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amyjudd

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 11:30 on May 27th, 2008

Michelle Says So, I like this story. It's good stuff. My friend just told me yesterday that she wants to get a job on a cruise line - now I'm nervous for her!

Michelle Says So

at 11:33 on May 27th, 2008

I'd tell your friend to read up on this site:

http://www.internationalcruisevictims.org/

She might think twice.

amyjudd

at 11:42 on May 27th, 2008

thanks so much - I will pass that along!

neilmaynard

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 13:36 on May 27th, 2008

Michelle Says So, I like this story. It's good stuff.

Beaulieu

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 13:47 on May 27th, 2008

Michelle Says So, I like this story. It's good stuff. I suppose in all businesses they like to 'keep mum' as much as possible. However, some companies have good whistleblowing policies although some people may not take it up for 'fear of implications'.

Barry Artiste

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 15:11 on May 27th, 2008

Michelle Says So, I like this story. It's good stuff. Though we have Interpol for crimes at sea, there certainly seems to be a lot of people falling off cruise ships, just like Mexico where Canadians cannot seem to be able to hold onto balcony railings to their death, complete with unexplained bruises and trauma and the odd stab wound, in which Mexican police deem an accident of misadventure,

politisite

at 17:00 on May 27th, 2008

Part of the problem is every time you get on one of these ships you do not have the same rights as a US citizen. They are flagged with Liberia or another country that has little or no labor laws thus the porters an others are like slave labor. All of the other things you have outlined as well. How many ships out of Miami or Port Canaveral have illness spread like wildfire to passengers? They call this a "fun" ship

Barry Artiste

at 18:43 on May 27th, 2008

Yeah, but Politisite, at least the slavers get to see the rest of the Western world with Envy, Jump ship and Voila, Asylum of become one of the many underground economies!

Michelle Says So

at 18:48 on May 27th, 2008

It is so easy to get away with almost any crime on a cruise ship or vacation. Here's an example. If you are a psycho male cruise ship employee, it would be easy to befriend women as their "friendly cruise staff" (this isn't the "Love Boat" people...) They may offer to buy a woman a drink, either drug her, or get her very intoxicated and assault her, perhaps steal her belongings, and leave her somewhere in the ship. When she comes to, she has no clue of where she is or what happened. She might never remember who that man was because there are hundreds of employees throughout the ship. Would she remember what he looked like? Would she feel too embarrassed to come forward? Would they just laugh and tell her she was drunk and it was her own fault?

The majority of the time those woman (and victims of other crimes) finish their vacation, go home and try to forget about it. If that is even possible.

If a victim does come forward to report a crime, a "report" is taken; but the law DOES NOT REQUIRE that it must be reported to authorities. ANYWHERE. Cruise ships are companies that follow no moral codes or societal rules. Who knows how many "reports" have been tossed in the garbage already crumpled with round coffee stains smearing all the facts...the blood, sweat and tears of that victim.

Here's a great example from an article regarding maritime laws and victim recourse by Julia Layton:

"...But onboard crime? Where would someone run to after they've stolen your wallet, or worse, committed rape or murder? It's a logical line of thinking, but it doesn't always apply. A 2007 congressional hearing on cruise ship safety revealed some surprising statistics. According to data provided by the world's biggest cruise lines, in the past three years, 28 people have disappeared on the open seas, and three have been found. Almost 200 people have reported cases of sexual misconduct or assault; and four people have been victims of grand theft [source: Tampa Bays 10].

That might not seem like much when you consider the tens of millions of people who take cruises each year. But it seems like a huge number when you consider the difficulty of enforcing the law on the open seas. Very few of those cases have been thoroughly investigated, let alone solved.

The problem is that maritime law -- the law that applies on the water -- is famously convoluted. Cruise ships aren't even required to report crime statistics to any governing body, and the question of who's supposed to investigate when a crime does occur is a sticky one.

Because maritime law is so difficult to clarify (in part because every country has its own version of it), most cases of cruise ship crime are decided on a case-by-case basis. Law on a cruise ship (or any other ship) starts with the flag the ship is flying under. A ship flies the flag of the country where it's registered, and, in general, the laws onboard a ship are the laws of that country. However, when figuring out which laws apply on a sea vessel, territory also must be taken into consideration.

...Lawsuits against a cruise line are different, though. While it might seem like a U.S. citizen robbed in U.S. territorial waters off the coast of Los Angeles could sue the cruise line in Los Angeles, it actually depends on the cruise ship ticket's fine print. If the ticket says the cruise line can only be sued in Seattle, then a Los Angeles court will almost always refuse to hear the case.

Another article that cites this very issue may invoke some change:

"WASHINGTON (AP) — Only five of the 28 people who disappeared from cruise ships in the past three years have ever been found. That's according to data disclosed to Congress by the world's largest cruise lines. A congressional memo compiled in advance of a House hearing on cruise ship safety also details 177 sexual misconduct incidents and four robberies of amounts over five-thousand dollars.

...Cruise lines are not required by law to publish comprehensive crime statistics and criminal law varies greatly on international waters. Congressman Christopher Shays says he's not comfortable with the accuracy of statistics given voluntarily. The Connecticut Republican, who chairs a House national security panel, is working on legislation to make such reporting mandatory.

In addition, a May, 2006 FBI article entitled, "Crime on the High Seas--Cruises Not a Vacation from Vigiliance cited:

"There were 39 cases of crimes on the high seas last year involving U.S. citizens, including sexual and physical assaults, death, drug smuggling, theft...from Fiscal Year 2000 to mid-2005, the FBI opened 305 criminal cases, more than half of them assaults."

Doesn't sound like the FBI is very successful at getting these right. Only 5 out of 28 people who were missing in the last three years were found? Their batting average is pretty pathetic.

jwbanks

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 19:17 on May 27th, 2008

Michelle Says So, I like this story. It's good stuff.

schellidittmann

at 19:39 on May 27th, 2008

I took this photo of our ship, while we were in Georgetown, Grand Cayman. It was our first cruise, while we didn't particularly enjoy the cruise experience, we never felt unsafe.

schellidittmann has contributed a photo to this story.