Cruise Ship Lawyers Blog
The Department of Transportation has reported a decrease in crime on cruise ships compared to numbers from earlier this year, data shows.
The latest available data from the Department of Transportation shows there have been about eight assaults with serious bodily injury, one suspicious death, one missing person, nine sexual assaults and 16 rape cases aboard ships reported to authorities. These incidents are alleged to have taken place from April to June 2024. Cruise lines with ships sailing to or from the United States are required to report criminal activity to the FBI such as sexual assaults, missing persons, physical assaults, property crimes and other alleged criminal activity every quarter, per the Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act.
A Look at the Numbers
In the first quarter of 2024, which ran from January to March 2024, there were eight assaults with serious bodily injury, 16 sexual assaults, 16 rapes and one missing persons case reported. This marks a small decrease from 47 to 36 total reported incidents of criminal activity aboard ships.
Companies with the most incidents overall in 2024 include Carnival Cruise Line, Royal Caribbean, and Norweigan Cruise Line. Though the incidents are down overall, sexual assaults continue to make up a bulk of the types of crimes that take place on board. In data from 2023, there were 131 sex crimes reported to the FBI including 52 sexual assaults and 79 rapes happening on ships embarking and disembarking to and from the United States. In 2022, a year that did not differentiate between sexual assault and rape, there were a total of 87 alleged sex crimes. The data began differentiating between the two crimes in 2023.
Cruise Line Pitfalls Related to Criminal Activity
As the industry continues to grow, estimates of 27.6 million passengers worldwide are projected for 2024, surpassing pre-COVID-19 numbers, so does the potential for injury and crime aboard ships. In a traumatic case handled by Leesfield & Partners attorneys, a Canadian single woman who was traveling on a cruise ship was raped by a crewmember. The cruise line employee was able to gain entry into the woman’s room using a key card from the ship before he attacked her multiple times. This case resulted in a multi-million dollar recovery for the woman.
The issue of a crewmember having unfettered access to cabins has been long debated with one side arguing that crewmembers require access to complete their tasks or need them in case of an emergency to check on a passenger while the other side states that allowing crewmembers to have access poses serious safety risks as was seen through the horrific incident with our client. In 2005, the industry’s leaders testified publicly that they would address the issue and had not six years later at the time of the incident involving our client.
Cases of sexual assaults and rapes aboard cruise ships are classified as strict vicarious liability cases. These ships have a duty of care to passengers to ensure that they are safe from crimes as they travel to and from their destinations and shield them from a crewmember who wishes to do them harm.
In another ongoing case being handled by the firm, a crewmember is facing felony charges after he admitted to filming passengers in their private stateroom bathrooms. Some of the passengers who were filmed include minors.
In a recent article published by the Daily Business Review, Ira Leesfield, the firm’s Founder and Managing Partner, said that he does see an uptick in crimes aboard ships but that the increase could be attributed to an increase in passenger population. The real issue with the prevalence of these incidents on cruise ships involves a lack of security and action from these major corporations that will continue until there is more enforcement in place to prevent these crimes.
“That’s just kind of a one in a long series of why there’s more sexual abuse and sexual activity on the ships, and I think your question is why? And I think the answer that I see is very lax policing, and very lax training, because a lot of the people … are crew members. This guy was a crew member,” Leesfield said.
