Dear Off Radar readers,
Ask yourselves: "How much do we really know about crimes occurring on board?"
Ask yourselves: "How much do we really know about crimes occurring on board?"
Only 31 out of 959 crimes reported to the FBI, since 2011, were published on a website maintained by the U.S. Coast Guard.
This is the main reason why passengers have an incomplete and misleading impression of crime on board of ships.
Back in 2007, an agreement between the FBI, Coast Guard and the cruise lines was made. Based on this agreement, the cruise industry should voluntarily report to the FBI incidents involving serious violations of U.S. law such as including homicide, suspicious death, missing U.S. nationals, kidnapping, assault with bodily injury, sexual assaults and more.
In 2010, Coast Guard was supposed to start maintaining a web-based statistical record of alleged crimes, as it was ordered by Congress. A new legislation requiring the industry to bring to light all crime alleged on cruise ships and create a video surveillance system in public areas has been introduced by the Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller.
Rockefeller has recently stated in reference to cruise crimes that since cruise ship crime reports are not given to the public, passengers have no way to find out what their real risks are before they book a cruise.
