Highlight Summary

Based on testimony presented by Dr. Ross A. Klein to the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety, and Security.

Crime at Sea Was Often Under-Reported

The testimony showed that, for many years, incidents on cruise ships, especially sexual assaults, were not consistently reported to outside law enforcement.

Instead, cases were frequently handled internally, making the true scope of onboard crime difficult to assess.

Evidence Was Easily Lost

Because cabins are cleaned several times a day and ships may be far from U.S. ports, potential evidence was often unintentionally destroyed or contaminated before independent investigators could access it.

Incident Rates Were Higher Than Industry Claims

Internal cruise-line data examined in the testimony showed sexual-assault rates on multiple ships that exceeded U.S. land-based averages during the same period.

The testimony emphasized that these figures reflect only reported incidents.

Royal Caribbean: Sex-Related Incident Data (2003–2005)

(Internal RCI data disclosed during litigation and presented in the testimony)

Fleet-Wide Totals (All RCI ships in dataset)

Total reported incidents (3-year period):

Inappropriate Touching: 36

Sexual Harassment: 102

Sexual Assault: 113

Combined sex-related incidents: 151 per year (annualized)

Overall annualized rate: 111.97 per 100,000

U.S. land-based rate (same period): 32.20 per 100,000

➡️ RCI’s rate was more than triple what was publicly claimed in 2006.

Rhapsody of the Seas: Snapshot from Internal Data (2003–2005)

The testimony included three years of incident data from various Royal Caribbean ships.

For Rhapsody of the Seas, the reported data showed:

3 sexual-harassment cases

7 sexual-assault cases

111.10 annualized incidents per 100,000 people onboard

This placed Rhapsody in the higher-risk range within the fleet for that period.

Passenger Disappearances Raised Additional Concerns

The testimony also reviewed multiple cases of passengers who vanished at sea, some accidents, some unexplained.

Because no centralized reporting system existed at the time, tracking these disappearances was extremely difficult.

Identified Risk Factors Onboard

The testimony cited several contributors to onboard safety problems, including:

Crew working long hours with limited supervision

High-alcohol environments for passengers

Inconsistent enforcement of conduct rules

Cultural differences among international crew

Variation in leadership and management standards ship-to-ship

These factors were described as creating conditions where incidents could occur more easily or go unnoticed.

Call for Greater Transparency

A major theme of the testimony was the need for:

Clear definitions of reportable crimes

Mandatory reporting to U.S. authorities

Public availability of statistics

Stronger training, surveillance, and oversight across ships

The testimony argued that transparency is essential for improving passenger safety.

This summary reflects publicly available testimony presented to the United States Senate. It does not introduce new claims or conclusions and is provided for informational and educational purposes only.