There has been a great deal of debate over the past decade regarding the amount of crime which occurs on cruise ships. The cruise industry claims that crime is "rare," whereas at least one cruise expert who testified before Congress stated that the rate of crime on cruise ships is twice that of crime ashore.
A criminologist for the cruise industry, Dr. James Alan Fox, published an article earlier this week which contains a great deal of unsubstantiated and misleading opinions about crime on cruise ships.
The cruise industry routinely hires Dr. Fox when Congress scrutinizes the cruise lines for not honestly reporting crimes. The Cruise Line International Association (CLIA)
Over 8 years ago George Smith went overboard from the Royal Caribbean’s Brilliance of the Seas cruise ship in the Aegean Sea during his honeymoon cruise.
By all accounts, Royal Caribbean covered the true circumstances of the crime up. In the process, this less-than-honest cruise line sparked a national interest in what really happens on
The following is an editorial / opinion piece by the Miami Herald which was published tonight:
"Crime on the high seas isn’t just about illegal commercial fishing practices, drug-running and Somalian pirates. Unfortunately, it also comes in the form of sexual assault, theft and suspicious disappearances on what are supposed to be pleasure cruises.
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CBS travel expert Peter Greenberg has interesting comments on the recent crime statistics released by the three major cruise lines.
Carnival, NCL and Royal Caribbean posted 237 crimes which allegedly took place on their cruise ship over the last 2 to 3 years. This is the first time that the cruise industry has ever publicly
Today a local NBC station in South Florida posted a video of the recent disclosure of cruise ship crime statistics.
You can read the article here.
The video (below) includes an interview with me about the provisions of the Cruise Vessel Safety and Security Act of 2010 (CVSSA) which permitted cruise ship crimes and
Tonight NBC News aired a segment on the recent hearing before the Senate regarding the issue of cruise ship crimes.
Senator Rockefeller scheduled the hearing in a year filled with high-profile cruise ship mishaps. NBC correspondent Mark Potter reports that lawmakers are turning their attention to the amount of crime that takes place while vacationers
Today the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation will conduct a hearing on whether there needs to be greater Congressional oversight of the cruise industry in light of recent cruise ships mishaps.
There are two recent examples of cruise line conduct which the committee should consider in determining whether Congress should take a closer eye
It has been eight years since George Smith disappeared from the Royal Caribbean Brilliance of the Seas in the early morning hours of July 4, 2005.
The cruise line initially stated that it had no idea what happened. But in 2012 it was revealed that Royal Caribbean took possession of a video shortly after the
The headline today in the Nassau Guardian newspaper blasted “Elderly Woman Shot at Home” during a robbery. Another front page story involved an unrelated but even more deadly title “Men Charged with Murder.”
These headlines are hardly rare. Two weeks ago, a U.S. crew member was shot dead during a robbery in downtown
Two days ago we reported on a ruling made by a judge in California holding that a cruise ship passenger accused of strangling and throwing his former wife overboard from a cruise ship in Italy could be prosecuted in state court.
But yesterday, the same judge reconsidered his ruling and decided that he did not have
Crimes on cruise ships on the high seas often fall into jurisdictional no-man’s lands where prosecutions are impossible to pursue.
But yesterday a judge in Orange County, California ruled that local prosecutors can try a criminal case against a cruise passenger accused of strangling his ex-wife and tossing her off a cruise ship in Italy
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Disney Cruise Line’s decision to sail its Disney Dream out of the jurisdiction to Nassau, Bahamas has caused concern and outrage not only with the local police department in Brevard County but has also caught the attention of the new Attorney General for Brevard County, Phil Archer.
After watching the video tape obtained by WKMG
In a disturbing case we have covered over the years, U.S. lawyer, Lonnie Loren Kocontes, entered a plea today of not guilty in the strangulation death of his ex-wife, Micki Kaneski, during a cruise off of the Italian coast seven years ago.
This case seems to stand in stark contrast to the cruise industry’s claim
Over three years ago, a U.S. cruise passenger, Nina Elizabeth Nilssen, age 30, was murdered while vacationing in Antigua near the English Harbour / Falmouth area. She had been cruising with her parents, an uncle and aunt, sister and brother-in-law aboard the Royal Clipper, a tall masted ship operated by Miami based Star Clippers.
The
The Broward County Sheriffs Office has posted a mug shot of a 27 year old Celebrity Cruises crew member arrested over the weekend on two counts of charges of grand theft (over $300 and less than $5,000).
According to the Sun Sentinel newspaper, HuanHuan Shen was arrested when the Celebrity Eclipse cruise ship returned to
The Houston Chronicle has an interesting article about five passengers arrested in Galveston when a cruise ship returned to port.
The passengers were on the Carnival Magic cruise ship and were arrested because they all has outstanding criminal warrants. Three women and two men were arrested and handcuffed and taken to jail in Galveston.
The
Yesterday it was announced at the marketing debut of Royal Caribbean’s Quantum of the Seas, that one of the ports of the new cruise ship would be Nassau in the Bahamas when it was launched in 2014. My first reaction was that Nassau was a dangerous location to host the new Royal Caribbean cruise
