Crime Reporting on Cruise Ships

THE CRUISE VESSEL SAFETY AND SECURITY ACT
by Sabrina Sadler, Social Outreach Intern

Have you ever gone on a cruise or thought about going on a cruise? Did you ever think of crimes happening on a cruise?

I came across the following article that introduces The Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act. This bill would “initiate a new Website, with reports updated quarterly on the number of crimes, their nature, and whether or not passengers or crew members are implicated. Each cruise line must also link to the crime statistics page from its Website.”

The second part of this article that I found to be important was that sexual assault occurs on these cruise ships, thankfully the law requires that these vessels carry rape investigation kits and hire or train an employee to preserve the evidence. It is unfortunate that cruise ships would even need these precautions but I am pleased to see that it is the law.

The truth is no one wants to think of being sexually assaulted, robbed, or any other crime while on vacation. But the reality is, it could happen and it does happen. I am glad to see that this bill is being put into action and with my highest hopes, I hope that it passes and cruise vessels are held accountable for the crime taking place on their vessels.

Bill would tighten crime reporting for cruises
Legislation would force lines to report on rapes, robberies, other crimes
updated 8:53 a.m. PT, Fri., July 31, 2009

MIAMI - Vacationers shopping for a cruise might soon have more things to consider than prices and itineraries. They may be able to compare the number of passengers allegedly raped, robbed or lost at sea under a bill approved Thursday for a vote by the U.S. House of Representatives.
The House Transportation and Infrastructure committee's unanimous approval of the measure, following a Senate committee's passage, clears the way for a vote in both chambers shortly after Congress returns from its August recess.

The Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act tightens restrictions on an industry that has long evaded much scrutiny — in part because of the complexity of international maritime law.
The industry initially opposed the bill, but the Cruise Lines International Association changed its stance. CLIA says most companies already follow many of the provisions — like sharing crime data with the Coast Guard — and some other components are already addressed under existing federal law.

"Millions of passengers each year enjoy a safe cruise vacation, and while serious incidents are rare, even one incident is one too many," CLIA said in a written statement. "As an industry, we are fully committed to the safety and security of our passengers and crew."

Because the industry has refused to release data to the public, the actual crime rate aboard the vessels is unknown but seems low. According to a U.S. House of Representatives memo from 2007, cruise industry executives testified that 178 people in North America reported sexual assaults from 2003 to 2005, and 24 passengers went missing. Compared with about 26 million passengers sailing during the period, those figures amount to crime rates far lower than the national average.

Because sexual assault is among the most frequently alleged crimes — and crew members are often alleged to be the perpetrators — the law requires that each ship carry rape investigation kits and hire or train an employee to preserve evidence.

Ships must also carry antiretroviral medicine to help prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, upgrade video surveillance and install peep holes, security latches and time-sensitive locks on all guest rooms.

Bill sponsors Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry and California Rep. Doris Matsui, both Democrats, started working on the issue after constituents shared stories of alleged rape, grief, fear and losing loved ones at sea.

Ken Carver, who brought the issue to Kerry's attention, started a nonprofit called International Cruise Victims after his daughter disappeared on a ship in 2005. He says he was lied to and stonewalled as he tried to learn what happened to her. Other passengers have related similar stories in testimony before Congress.

"In the past three years, I have met far too many American families which have incurred tragedy during what ought to be a relaxing vacation," Matsui said. "For far too long, American families have unknowingly been at risk on cruise ships."

The Secretary of Transportation would initiate a new Web site under the bill with reports updated quarterly on the number of crimes, their nature and whether passengers or crew members are implicated. Each cruise line must also link to the crime statistics page from its Web site.

New York Times article, Women at Risk by Bob Herbert

After reading this article I kept returning to it. I found myself frustrated and frightened. Most of all I wish I had all the answers. Even some of the answers. Read, reflect and let us know what you think.

xo

Becca

August 8, 2009

Op-Ed Columnist

Women at Risk
By BOB HERBERT

“I actually look good. I dress good, am clean-shaven, bathe, touch of cologne — yet 30 million women rejected me,” wrote George Sodini in a blog that he kept while preparing for this week’s shooting in a Pennsylvania gym in which he killed three women, wounded nine others and then killed himself.

We’ve seen this tragic ritual so often that it has the feel of a formula. A guy is filled with a seething rage toward women and has easy access to guns. The result: mass slaughter.Back in the fall of 2006, a fiend invaded an Amish schoolhouse in rural Pennsylvania, separated the girls from the boys, and then shot 10 of the girls, killing five. I wrote, at the time, that there would have been thunderous outrage if someone had separated potential victims by race or religion and then shot, say, only the blacks, or only the whites, or only the Jews. But if you shoot only the girls or only the women — not so much of an uproar.

According to police accounts, Sodini walked into a dance-aerobics class of about 30 women who were being led by a pregnant instructor. He turned out the lights and opened fire. The instructor was among the wounded. We have become so accustomed to living in a society saturated with misogyny that the barbaric treatment of women and girls has come to be more or less expected. We profess to being shocked at one or another of these outlandish crimes, but the shock wears off quickly in an environment in which the rape, murder and humiliation of females is not only a staple of the news, but an important cornerstone of the nation’s entertainment.The mainstream culture is filled with the most gruesome forms of misogyny, and pornography is now a multibillion-dollar industry — much of it controlled by mainstream U.S. corporations. One of the striking things about mass killings in the U.S. is how consistently we find that the killers were riddled with shame and sexual humiliation, which they inevitably blamed on women and girls.

The answer to their feelings of inadequacy was to get their hands on a gun (or guns) and begin blowing people away.What was unusual about Sodini was how explicit he was in his blog about his personal shame and his hatred of women. “Why do this?” he asked. “To young girls? Just read below.” In his gruesome, monthslong rant, he managed to say, among other things: “It seems many teenage girls have sex frequently. One 16 year old does it usually three times a day with her boyfriend. So, err, after a month of that, this little [expletive] has had more sex than ME in my LIFE, and I am 48.

One more reason.”I was reminded of the Virginia Tech gunman, Seung-Hui Cho, who killed 32 people in a rampage at the university in 2007. While Cho shot males as well as females, he was reported to have previously stalked female classmates and to have leaned under tables to take inappropriate photos of women. A former roommate said Cho once claimed to have seen “promiscuity” when he looked into the eyes of a woman on campus.Soon after the Virginia Tech slayings, I interviewed Dr. James Gilligan, who spent many years studying violence as a prison psychiatrist in Massachusetts and as a professor at Harvard and N.Y.U. “What I’ve concluded from decades of working with murderers and rapists and every kind of violent criminal,” he said, “is that an underlying factor that is virtually always present to one degree or another is a feeling that one has to prove one’s manhood, and that the way to do that, to gain the respect that has been lost, is to commit a violent act.”

Life in the United States is mind-bogglingly violent. But we should take particular notice of the staggering amounts of violence brought down on the nation’s women and girls each and every day for no other reason than who they are. They are attacked because they are female. A girl or woman somewhere in the U.S. is sexually assaulted every couple of minutes or so. The number of seriously battered wives and girlfriends is far beyond the ability of any agency to count.There were so many sexual attacks against women in the armed forces that the Defense Department had to revise its entire approach to the problem.We would become much more sane, much healthier, as a society if we could bring ourselves to acknowledge that misogyny is a serious and pervasive problem, and that the twisted way so many men feel about women, combined with the absurdly easy availability of guns, is a toxic mix of the most tragic proportions.

A Little Piece of Me

by Sabrina Sadler, Social Outreach Intern

I am a Survivor of Sexual Assault.

I have had the opportunity to share my story with my friends, my family, my fellow collegians, and complete strangers. During this period of my healing process my case was put on hold.

Recently my case got a Lead.

Exciting right? But what does this mean for me?

I believe that one of the most healing things to do as a survivor of sexual assault is to share your story, whether it is with one person or many. Each one of us, who is a survivor of sexual assault, holds a different story within, waiting to be told, and it is these stories that tie us together and give us strength.

Since my case has recently been re-opened, I am faced with the chance of my case going to trial, which means if I want the best case for myself, I can no longer openly talk about my story until it is closed.

So in the mean time I wait…and wait…and wait.

Cases don’t come and go as fast as they do on ‘Law and Order’, but I wish they did.

Our justice system is a timely process and everything has to be done right, in order for my case to be strong.

I will never forget the day I got the phone call from my detective saying we have a lead. I was caught completely off guard and feeling every emotion possible…

Relief. Sadness. Scared. Happy. Terrified.

I couldn’t believe this day had finally come.

Now that it has been a little while since that phone call, I continue to wait for my case to take its course, but everyday I contemplate if the silence is worth keeping.

I look at Kelly and Becca, and think how amazing it is for them to travel to various colleges and share their story, the story of Kelly’s Sexual Assault and the story of Kelly and Becca’s Friendship.

For those of you who have seen the 2020 episode of the DeAnza College Gang Rape. I’m thankful for Lauren, Chief, and April to share the story, and speak on behalf of the Survivor.

It is very empowering to share such a personal and tragic story with others. Sexual Assault is about having power and control. As a survivor we try to gain that power and control back.

In my situation, I sometimes feel the Justice system takes my power and control away from me, once again.

I do have the choice to speak or not to speak, but that is weighed on the fact of having a strong or weak case.

Perez Hilton’s Altercation Highlights Issue of Victim Blaming

Perez Hilton is known for taking cheap shots at celebrities, but things got messy when Black Eyed Peas singer will.i.am’s manager physically fought back.

Apparently members of the Black Eyed Peas asked Hilton, real name Mario Lavandeira, to back off on his critical approach of the members and their music at the MuchMusic Video Awards held in Toronto on Sunday. He refused and engaged in some explicative name-calling.

Later Hilton was assaulted by the band’s manager, Liborio "Polo" Molina. Molina has been charged with assault and has a hearing scheduled for early August.

Regardless of the situation that led up to the altercation, the reaction following has been strikingly similar to reactions many sexual assault survivors experience. Victim blaming has been occurring all over the web, from tweets to blogs to comment’s on Hilton’s site.
What’s sad about this situation is that people are finding justification for Molina’s actions, just as many people find justification for the horrific experiences sexual assault survivors endure.
John Mayer used his twitter account to inform Hilton that, “People don't want to see you hurt, they want to see you experience something equalizing,” and “By understanding the genetics of a violent incident you can learn to avoid them. And if you can't, you will learn to end them.”
The flaw in his logic though is suggesting that Hilton could have avoided the violence. While name-calling could have been avoided, there’s a line between verbal violence and physical violence. And one doesn’t justify the other. However, Mayer’s not alone.

Others are justifying the incident saying that Hilton, “Had it coming to him,” and that this must be his karma.

That sounds very similar to, “If only she hadn’t drank so much…” and “Just look at the way she was dressed; she was asking for it.”

No one asks to be assaulted.

Hilton responded to all the reactions on his blog, saying, “There are many ways to deal with disagreements, both good and bad, but violence is never the answer. Never. I now know that first-hand. It should not be condoned, promoted or accepted. No one "deserves" to be the victim of violence. No one "has it coming." NO ONE. And victims should not be ridiculed.”

I find it surprising that victim blaming even exists. However, I hope this situation will highlight victim blaming as a whole, and especially victim blaming in sexual assault cases. I hope that all these people coming to the celebrity blogger’s side will open their eyes and reevaluate victim blaming on all levels, not just on the plane of celebrity ranting.

--Molly Hays, Communications Intern

Northern Michigan University- Rocks Unite for Change!

So smack dab in the middle of the Unite for Change campaign we visit Northern Michigan University. We suspected it was going to be an awesome experience and we were right on. First off the student organizer was this awesome girl, Brit. She was professional, funny and motivated. Our kinda gal. So it was no surprise to us when she revealed she was also our sorority sister (sorry for the obvious bias).

However once we arrived on campus we knew Brit was a classic example of their entire Panhellenic Council. Who are actively working to stomp out sexual violence. The council even printed their own t-shirts which they sold as a fundraiser (pictured above). This is a great example of creating your own solutions to enact a cultural change in our communities.

You go girls!

Thank you all for being a part of the campaign and the Mission.

Always-

Becca and Kelly