Shipboard Personal Safety and Crime

[goodmud]

I think the best thing we can do for our children is to educate them to be street smart. That does not mean to be so paranoid that you can't enjoy yourself. We have to educate them to be aware of their surroundings, to not accept drinks or anything else from anyone, to be careful of the situations that they are putting themselves into, and most of all, to trust their instincts. We cannot EVER keep our children 100% safe, but we also must make sure they are prepared for real life. I love the quote: Do not prepare the path for the child, prepare the child for the path. I put my 15 year old daughter on a plane to Denmark for a year, knowing that she did not know anyone on the other side of the ocean. I was comfortable with the exchange program (Rotary, can't say enough positive things about them!). They helped prepare her for situations that might come up, but it is also important that WE as parents prepare them. She has lived her whole life in a small town of 4000. It is 3 hours from the nearest McDonalds. But, she was well prepared to go to Copenhagen. She trusts her instincts, she has street smarts, but she also knows that most people are kind and willing to help. I guess you have to trust that society is mostly good, but be prepared if they are not. When she came home, my mother asked her, "You didn't talk to any strangers did you?" Her response was, if I didn't talk to strangers, I wouldn't have talked to anyone! This will be our first cruise, she is 18 now and our son is 15. They will both have free rein of the ship, but I am also going to remind them of the basic rules - because it never hurts to remind them. Our role as parents is to lead them to independence, by preparing them to make decisions. Bad things happen to people, but so do GOOD things!! Grasp life, and enjoy!

[RJake1]

For the record, I never suggested that cruise security was sitting around sipping coffee all day. I'm sure that they work hard. I just think the cruise ships don't employ enough of them.

[ducklite]

Cruise ship security & safety has increased so much over the years, especially recently....but if someone is determined to undermine or ignore those measures, then in all honesty, the cruise line cannot be held responsible for the outcome...even if it ends in tragedy, the responsibility is yours (ours) as the pax to do the right thing.

 

I disagree to that as a blanket statement. If a cruise line employee commits a battery on a passenger, the cruise line absolutely should be held accountable, just like any place of business would.

[ducklite]

For the record, I never suggested that cruise security was sitting around sipping coffee all day. I'm sure that they work hard. I just think the cruise ships don't employ enough of them.

 

I disagree. How many security people per guest would you find at an amusement park? How about a typical hotel with the same number of rooms/guests?

 

Considering that ships officers have the authority to act as de facto security, that significantly raises the percentage of security personnel.

[Goldryder]

I disagree to that as a blanket statement. If a cruise line employee commits a battery on a passenger, the cruise line absolutely should be held accountable, just like any place of business would.

 

Absolutely....however, there are well documented cases of pax who have made allegations against crew which have been found to be false...but sadly not until after that crewmember has been arrested, lost their job & been deported.

 

For example, a female pax aboard a cruise ship a couple years ago alleged rape by a waiter. Since the ship was in US waters, the FBI were brought in to investigate it, the crewman was arrested, charged and it got as far as arraignment before the truth came out. Granted both individuals acted stupidly...they drank together in an otherwise closed MDR late at night, both got drunk, signals were misunderstood and the inevitable happened. The female pax was with her family and she panicked. Next morning she reported the waiter for rape at the front desk and she stuck by that story right up until it went to court....then she admitted that it was consensual and that she was sorry for everything but she lied to save her blushes with her husband. The charges were dropped but the waiter...who admitted he was wrong to drink with a pax and that things did go further than they should have done...was sacked, deported and is unlikely to ever work on a cruise ship again after a career spanning almost 30 years. The female pax went on to her normal life without so much as a slap on the wrist.

 

Crew on ships are often treated far worse by the legal system, especially if they come from what is classed as a 3rd world country. The case above involved a man with an impeccable record, he had worked up to head waiter for the same cruise line over 30 years. He was from the Philippines and was handed a public defender who knew nothing about life on a cruise ship or this man's background...to all intents and purposes he was a dirty foreign worker taking advantage of an American woman by plying her with booze and raping her.

 

He accepted that he should not have taken notice of the flirting and that he should not have accepted her invitation for a few drinks after work...but like everyone else, he is a human being and occasionally we humans make decisions that we really shouldn't have done....this one mistake cost him everything (and his family too)....she, on the other hand, got away pretty much scot free apart from some embarrassment and a ticking off from the authorities.

 

But on the general topic of safety & security on a cruise ship, there is no reason to increase the steps already in place. Mistakes get made, accidents happen...no different to home...cest la vie. But it can be too easy for a pax to allege or accuse on a cruise ship and there is very little protection for the crew, the onus is always that the crew must have done something...and its not until court that often the real truth comes out, by which time that crew's life has been destroyed. Whereas there is a mass of protection for the pax and the authorities still have trouble believing that foreign worker over their own citizen. The crew are usually far more vulnerable to the actions or words of a pax than a pax is in relation o actions or words from crew...and that is sad.

[Aquahound]

Since the ship was in US waters, the FBI were brought in to investigate it, the crewman was arrested, charged and it got as far as arraignment before the truth came out.

 

To be clear, FBI has jurisdiction on all cruise ships operating out of the U.S., everywhere they may be. Furthermore, they have jurisdiction in cases involving U.S. citizens on overseas cruise. I see your thought often, so I just want to make sure it is clear a ship does not have to be in U.S. waters for the FBI to have jurisdiction.

 

To take it 1 step further, the state of Florida has jurisdiction over certain matters throughout the voyage of a cruise starting and ending in Florida. The most common is domestic battery. FBI cannot prosecute misdemeanor battery without a cooperative victim. Florida, however, has a preferred arrest policy in domestics. So even if the battery ocurred on the high seas, local police back in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Key West, etc, can make the arrest and charge state statutes (case law STEPANSKI).

[Goldryder]

To be clear, FBI has jurisdiction on all cruise ships operating out of the U.S., everywhere they may be. Furthermore, they have jurisdiction in cases involving U.S. citizens on overseas cruise. I see your thought often, so I just want to make sure it is clear a ship does not have to be in U.S. waters for the FBI to have jurisdiction.

 

To take it 1 step further, the state of Florida has jurisdiction over certain matters throughout the voyage of a cruise starting and ending in Florida. The most common is domestic battery. FBI cannot prosecute misdemeanor battery without a cooperative victim. Florida, however, has a preferred arrest policy in domestics. So even if the battery ocurred on the high seas, local police back in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Key West, etc, can make the arrest and charge state statutes (case law STEPANSKI).

 

The case I mentioned was handled when the ship returned to Los Angeles, but jurasdiction aside, I am still of the opinion that pax get far more security & safety cover than the crew do.

 

The majority of cruise ship crew are citizens of countries that are often looked upon as not worthy of protection by authorities and by their employers. The old addage of 'the customer is always right' does not just apply to the usual meaning that we all know...it can also make any allegation against the crew from a pax stick and cruise lines place that crew up like a lamb to the slaughter long before any investigation has even started, let alone actually finding out what reall occurred and I personally feel that is completely wrong.

 

Leaving a crew open to any & all forms of allegation, accusation or libel and not helping them by supplying legal advice or just basic support is totally unreasonable. To a cruise line, an employee on a ship is dispensible..not just if their work is not upto scratch but if any pax throws an accusation at them too. They are off the ship & out of a job before their backside hits the bottom of the gangway and before any investigation is commenced.

 

Don't get me wrong, I am all for punishing those crew (and pax) if they do something wrong, but the pax have far more support & legal assistance than crew during the investigative stages and crew have absolutely no support or legal assistance when they are found completely not guilty of the offence that the pax brought against them. That is hardly fair.

 

This is why I feel that the crew on ships are the ones who need the security & safety precautions increased...not the pax. The crew have no protection against a pax who files a false accusation...there are no lawyers who know life at sea and that can be afforded by a crewmember, the cruise line doesn't provide their employee with any assistance and when that crewmember is found not to be guilty of any wrongdoing...as in the case I mentioned....he is left high & dry, no job, no income and no future...and all he was guilty of was a momentary lack of good judgement by having a few drinks with a pax.

 

If the rest of us lost everything due to a false accusation, there would be uproar...but not the foreign crew on cruise ships, they are throw away employees, easy to replace.

 

The cruise lines save their reputation by sacking an innocent person, the pax who brought the false accusation cruises again on the same ship next year as if nowt happened...and the crewmember...well he is left picking up the pieces as best he can, he can't work on a cruise ship anymore cos when he was arrested the authorities published his name and photo across the media...he is a marked man for life and all cos one female pax got drunk and cried rape.

 

Hardly fair and proves that its not the pax who need protection from the crew, its often the crew who need protection from the pax. I know there are crew & pax who do break the law, but those who do not but are accused of doing wrong, there is sod all out there to help them once the truth comes out.

[Aquahound]

Hardly fair and proves that its not the pax who need protection from the crew, its often the crew who need protection from the pax. I know there are crew & pax who do break the law, but those who do not but are accused of doing wrong, there is sod all out there to help them once the truth comes out.

 

I see what you are saying and I agree and disagree with it. Hopefully, you are not basing your opinions on a single incident.

 

I am somewhat familiar with the levels of protections afforded the crew by the cruise lines. It is not nearly as good as say a police officer, who is protected from civil liability if determined to be acting within scope of his/her official duties. However, in my experience, the cruise lines do make a effort to determine the truth and they are not quite as quick to hang a crewmember out to dry as you suggest. Now, I don't know anything about the specific case you are mentioning, but I do know about hundreds of other cases (I am on the investigating end ;)).

 

The cruise lines do have an interest in protecting their reputations. Of course. However, in my experience, I have yet to see a crewmember dismissed so quickly without very good and damning evidence against him or her. In your example of a rape accusation, a fellow passenger may not have been arrested so quickly because of the less likelyhood of flight, but eventually, he would have been. And either way, that crewmember did violate the cruise line's fraternization policy, so protections were probably limited from the beginning.

[dsrdsrdsr]

For example, a female pax aboard a cruise ship a couple years ago alleged rape by a waiter. Since the ship was in US waters, the FBI were brought in to investigate it, the crewman was arrested, charged and it got as far as arraignment before the truth came out. Granted both individuals acted stupidly...they drank together in an otherwise closed MDR late at night, both got drunk, signals were misunderstood and the inevitable happened. The female pax was with her family and she panicked. Next morning she reported the waiter for rape at the front desk and she stuck by that story right up until it went to court....then she admitted that it was consensual and that she was sorry for everything but she lied to save her blushes with her husband. The charges were dropped but the waiter...who admitted he was wrong to drink with a pax and that things did go further than they should have done...was sacked, deported and is unlikely to ever work on a cruise ship again after a career spanning almost 30 years.

In this instance, he would have lost his job and never worked again on a cruise ship if she had told the truth. Sex with passengers is banned, whether consensual or not. (I'm not excusing the passenger in any way. The waiter still suffered the trauma of false imprisonment and the threat of life in jail, the passenger ought at least to have been done for wasting police time.)

[G.M.T.]

For the record, I never suggested that cruise security was sitting around sipping coffee all day. I'm sure that they work hard. I just think the cruise ships don't employ enough of them.

To put things into perspective, you can check the followfigures in Wikipedia, it's police office per head of population;

 

London 1:205

New York 1:240

Log Angeles 1:285

 

Compare these ratios to cruise ships.

 

Not forgetting the above cities have ongoing continous crimes, gang warfare etc.

 

Ron