1 1/2 billion people live in New York City according to cruise ship companies?
That's what the cruise industry would have us believe. That's the same kind of distortion of the facts that they are using to downplay the problem of crime during cruise vacations.
When Cruise ship companies refer to the figure of 31 million passengers; it is bogus and very misleading. There are only about 200,000 beds altogether and they are not always full. Crime statistics should be compared to a city of about 125,000 or less since the ships are not always full and passengers spend at least 25% of their time on shore and the ship crime statistics do not include crimes while on shore. We are not even sure if all 200,000 beds are accounted for by ICCL. On their web site they say there are a total of 184 ships with total births of around 200,000 yet ICCL only represents 90 ships or definitely less than 200,000 births.
1- To get the 30 million passenger figure, ICCL multiplies the 200,000 berths by 3 years times 52 weeks a year and thus inflate the population used for crime statistic comparisons by a factor of 156. That is like saying that New York City has a population of 1.5 billion or 156 times about 10 million people.
2- There are probably many categories of crime that are not counted by the cruise lines. I believe they do not count crimes unless they are reported before they leave the ship. They may not count robberies of less than $5,000. And crewmembers are quietly told not to report crimes. The case Kendall Carver's daughter was not even reported as a crime. Letting the cruise industry keep their own statistics is kind of like asking the mafia how much money they have laundered in the last three years. ATTENTION ALL JOURNALIST and GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS: Someone Needs to Evaluate the raw data from which ICCL gets their conclusions.
3- The crime figures for cruise vacations should be compared with the crime statistics for a gated community not just a general metropolitan area. The crime statistics do not include in data on crimes reported by crewmembers and they are part of the smaal city, too. So we should expect crime to be less on the cruise ships than it is in a gated community with no lower class citizens.
4- It is not just the fact that the numbers of crimes are under-reported by the cruise industry it is the high percentage of cases that are not investigated or prosecuted properly and the fact that there is no data collected by an unbiased authority.
'I don't Want The Next Person To Go Through The Same Thing'
KOMO - Seattle,WA,USA March 7, 2006
Michael Pham of Sammamish testified in Washington, D.C. Tuesday that something has to be done to better police the cruise ship industry. His testimony before a the House Subcommittee on National Security comes ten months after his mom and dad disappeared somewhere between Barbados and Aruba.
Pham and others, many of them featured on a website called InternationalCruiseVictims.org, are asking congress to place tougher regulations on the cruise industry. Cruise ship employees are effectively their own police force, while at sea they control crime scenes and investigations, and are not required to report comprehensive crime statistics.
Records show that in the last three years as many as 28 people have disappeared from cruise ships (only 5 of them were ever found) and as many as 178 people claim to be victims of sexual assault while on board cruise ships.
But representatives speaking for the cruise industry, while admitting the numbers are real, say the problems are extremely rare. In the same time frame cruise lines carried up to 31 million passengers.
When Cruise ship companies refer to the figure of 31 million passengers; it is bogus and very misleading. There are only about 200,000 beds altogether and they are not always full. Crime statistics should be compared to a city of about 125,000 or less since the ships are not always full and passengers spend at least 25% of their time on shore and the ship crime statistics do not include crimes while on shore. We are not even sure if all 200,000 beds are accounted for by ICCL. On their web site they say there are a total of 184 ships with total births of around 200,000 yet ICCL only represents 90 ships or definitely less than 200,000 births.
1- To get the 30 million passenger figure, ICCL multiplies the 200,000 berths by 3 years times 52 weeks a year and thus inflate the population used for crime statistic comparisons by a factor of 156. That is like saying that New York City has a population of 1.5 billion or 156 times about 10 million people.
2- There are probably many categories of crime that are not counted by the cruise lines. I believe they do not count crimes unless they are reported before they leave the ship. They may not count robberies of less than $5,000. And crewmembers are quietly told not to report crimes. The case Kendall Carver's daughter was not even reported as a crime. Letting the cruise industry keep their own statistics is kind of like asking the mafia how much money they have laundered in the last three years. ATTENTION ALL JOURNALIST and GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS: Someone Needs to Evaluate the raw data from which ICCL gets their conclusions.
3- The crime figures for cruise vacations should be compared with the crime statistics for a gated community not just a general metropolitan area. The crime statistics do not include in data on crimes reported by crewmembers and they are part of the smaal city, too. So we should expect crime to be less on the cruise ships than it is in a gated community with no lower class citizens.
4- It is not just the fact that the numbers of crimes are under-reported by the cruise industry it is the high percentage of cases that are not investigated or prosecuted properly and the fact that there is no data collected by an unbiased authority.
'I don't Want The Next Person To Go Through The Same Thing'
KOMO - Seattle,WA,USA March 7, 2006
Michael Pham of Sammamish testified in Washington, D.C. Tuesday that something has to be done to better police the cruise ship industry. His testimony before a the House Subcommittee on National Security comes ten months after his mom and dad disappeared somewhere between Barbados and Aruba.
Pham and others, many of them featured on a website called InternationalCruiseVictims.org, are asking congress to place tougher regulations on the cruise industry. Cruise ship employees are effectively their own police force, while at sea they control crime scenes and investigations, and are not required to report comprehensive crime statistics.
Records show that in the last three years as many as 28 people have disappeared from cruise ships (only 5 of them were ever found) and as many as 178 people claim to be victims of sexual assault while on board cruise ships.
But representatives speaking for the cruise industry, while admitting the numbers are real, say the problems are extremely rare. In the same time frame cruise lines carried up to 31 million passengers.
posted by Timalantoo | 3/11/2006 05:57:00 PM
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