President Donald Trump’s Department of Transportation recently released a report showing that the crime rates for cruise ships leaving the United States have reached a two-year high.
A report released by the Department of Transportation shows that 48 alleged crimes were reported on cruise ships from January 1, 2025, to March 30, 2025. According to the data shared by the Department of Transportation, 23 of the alleged crimes were reported as rape incidents, 10 were reported as sexual assaults, and seven were reported as assaults with serious bodily injury.
Addressing the recent cruise ship crime rate report, Robert McDonald, a criminal justice lecturer at the University of New Haven and a former Secret Service special agent, told Fox News, “Sometimes, the cruise lines don’t want to report this information on the front end, depending upon, again, what type of crime it is, which brings unfortunate attention to them, just as it would when we have airplane situations or the delays in airplanes that we’re having now.”
“All of that negative vibe and negative information puts a dark cloud over the industry, an industry that wants people to come to it and wants them to be comfortable spending their money,” McDonald added.
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As an example of a recent crime reported on a cruise ship, Fox News reported that two illegal immigrants were arrested on March 21 after allegedly molesting a minor on a Royal Caribbean cruise that departed from Miami, Florida. The outlet noted that 37-year-old Ricardo Daniel Mondragon Leal and 36-year-old Jose Prudencio Diaz were charged with child molestation and exhibition after the two illegal immigrants allegedly masturbated in front of a 14-year-old boy, forced the boy to touch them, and forced the boy to perform a sex act.
In another incident, Fox News reported that dozens of Carnival Cruise Line passengers engaged in a brawl while leaving a cruise ship on April 26.
McDonald explained that cruise ships often see a higher rate of crime due to the number of individuals gathered in a confined space.
The criminal justice lecturer told Fox News, “I think anytime we get large numbers of people together, whether it’s at a Super Bowl game or at a World Series game or an NBA Finals or graduations or whatnot, whenever we get people together, whenever there’s alcohol involved, whenever there are people being able to let loose a little bit from their normal personality, I think that exacerbates the ability for numbers to rise in that regard.”
“Anytime we get together, those numbers are going to go up, whether that’s at a resort, whether it’s on a cruise ship,” McDonald added.
