Cruise Ship Crime Continues to Put Passengers at Risk

When people go on cruises, they tend to think that the laws and rules that govern their home country will also govern their lives at sea. This is an incorrect assumption. The truth is, cruise ships often function as independent entities. The way criminal matters are dealt with on board a ship can depend on the ship's location in the ocean, its home port, or even the nationality of its passengers. As a result, prosecuting crimes can be difficult. Since there are no police to conduct investigations onboard ships, crime scenes on ships are often contaminated. And if the ship is in foreign waters, it is sometimes up to the captain to decide whether to incarcerate someone suspected of committing a crime.

Any number of crimes will take place on cruise ships: sexual assault, theft, and battery tend to be the most common. Often, if a U.S. citizen is involved, the FBI will investigate the alleged crime, but some victims of cruise ship crimes claim that the action often comes too late. According to FBI numbers, only about 16 percent of crimes that take place on cruise ships lead to convictions or plea bargains.

In the pursuit to convince passengers and authorities of their safety, cruise ships take the position that they follow guidelines set forth by the International Maritime Organization and the recommendations in the Safety of Life at Sea. However, the International Maritime Organization, which is a UN organization, does not have the authority to enforce its own guidelines, nor can it impose fines or criminal sanctions against cruise lines. This obligation falls to flag states, like Panama, and it is often not pursued to the fullest extent of any law.

The result of all of this dodging of responsibility is that cruise lines are mostly unregulated. The push to always keep the ships going to their ports of call, without any long delays caused by things like criminal investigation, causes problems in investigations of passenger disappearances, shipboard crimes and gastrointestinal illnesses. Instead, investigations are often either rushed so the cruise is held up for as little time as possible, or the investigation is delayed for so long that crucial evidence is lost. Either way, despite their assertions, , cruise ships have not put the highest priority on protecting their passengers.