Cruise Crime Victims Speak Out

March 7, 2006 — -- After honeymooner George Smith vanished from a Royal Caribbean Cruise ship, Congress started asking questions: Just how many crimes take place on the high seas?

Some victims say cruise lines downplay crimes that happen onboard to avoid bad publicity. Today, they'll voice those complaints before a congressional subcommittee that's considering strengthening federal oversight of the industry.

Janet Kelly said she was drugged and raped on a cruise when she and her family were supposed to be enjoying a "healing vacation." She said her rapist had yet to be prosecuted.

"There wasn't any justice with what happened to me. It needs to change," said Kelly, 49, who has two sons. "The system is broke. … I reported it right away. It didn't do any good."

She said the FBI had told her there was nothing it could do because of a lack of evidence.

"It was life altering," Kelly said. "I will never get over what happened. It has affected me and my family in so many ways, and it's been very hard for me to work through the experience."

This week, the industry revealed that at least 28 people had gone missing from cruise ships over the last three years. Only five have been found. There were 178 complaints of sexual assault.

The cruise lines argue the crime statistics are low when you consider 31 million passengers set sail during that period. The figures translate roughly to one crime per 150,000 passengers. On land, the U.S. violent crime rate is about 700 events per 150,000. Last year, the cruise ship industry served 11.2 million passengers -- up 63 percent since 2000.

"We have excellent security practices onboard that screen onboard the ships, that screen out anything you don't want onboard," said Michael Crye, president of the International Council of Cruise Lines.

A Crime Hotbed?

At Port Canaveral in Florida, sheriff's Lt. Tom Yong said his office had arrested between one and three cruise passengers a week usually because a review of the passenger manifest -- after the ship sets sail -- reveals people with outstanding warrants.

"There's a computer check as you get on the boat. … As you spend the whole week on the boat, we've got time to do the computer check and then we can do the arrest when you get off," he said.

Kelly and Jennifer Hagel Smith, the wife of the missing George Smith, said that U.S. marshals should be on every ship like they are on commercial flights. They said policing the ships was difficult because the vast majority of cruise ships are registered in foreign countries. Because of murky jurisdiction issues, the companies report crimes to the FBI on a voluntary basis.

There is a "lack of accountability and transparency" in the cruise ship industry, Hagel Smith said. "We have an industry that doesn't have to answer to anybody. … They are self-policing, and quite frankly self-policing doesn't work. They might withhold things because it's in their best interest to do so."

"It's a breakdown," Kelly said. "It's just very frustrating."