This past January, two young men were accused of raping a woman on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship. The two men, aged 20 and 15, worked together to assault the woman. On dry land these two men would be prosecuted and worked into crime statistics. Sadly, trying to locate this offense in the FBI’s database of maritime crime will be next to impossible. There are no reports of sexual assaults on Royal Caribbean’s cruise line at all in the past year.
Sexual assaults and other crimes were so common on cruise lines that the Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act of 2010 was passed by Congress. The act required companies to put policies in place that would help protect sexual assault victims. The act also forced companies to report any sexual assaults or missing persons who are U.S. citizens. Prior to the act cruise lines readily reported these statistics to the FBI even though they were not made public.
According to Laurie Dishman, the vice president International Cruise Victims, the main goal of the act was to get cruise lines to report crimes. These crime reports would in turn help Americans make decisions on which cruise line to choose, based on the crime data. The crime data was supposed to be publicly available to consumers so they could see which types of crimes occurred the most on certain cruise lines.
After the act went into effect it was noted by the International Cruise Victims group that crimes on cruise ships were declining. From December 2007 to around October 2008, the cruise lines that willingly reported their crimes data was 363. However after the Safety Act was passed those numbers dropped sharply. From 2010 until 2012 numbers of reported crimes on cruise ships was 54. Even though crimes were being committed, cruise ships were not reporting them as they were required by law.
There seems to be a disconnect between the FBI’s understanding of the Act and its supporters. The cause of this disconnect is probably due to a phrase that the FBI inserted into the bill which stated that the FBI would only report crimes once they were solved or closed. However, some sexual assault cases were dismissed and therefore never opened. This discrepancy leads to incorrect and skewed crime data. Advocates of the act agree that all crimes should be reported despite the status of the case so the victim can be helped.
