Understanding contemporary maritime piracy

Although the international news media is often filled with reports on maritime piracy, particularly those occurring in Somalia, little research has been done in the field of criminology to understand this crime. To address these issues, the present research employed two complementary research strategies designed to examine the character, magnitude and underlying dynamic of contemporary piracy in the 21st century. To examine the character and magnitude of contemporary piracy this study drew on and merged information from the two primary international data sources on piracy; information collected by the International Maritime Bureau and the United States Office of Naval Intelligence. The merger of these two sources provides the most comprehensive database on piracy incidence currently available from 2001 to 2010, the Contemporary Maritime Piracy Database. This new dataset is used to: examine the cross national and temporal character of contemporary maritime piracy across nine major dimensions, including: 1) the location and source of attacks; 2) the date of attacks; 3) the location at sea; 4) the time of attacks; 5) target vessel characteristics; 6) pirate characteristics; 7) pirate actions; 8) pirate motivation; and 9) responses to piracy. Dimensions three to nine were studied across regions and countries (dimension one) and over the 2001 to 2010 study period (dimension two).