The strength of a nation comes from that nation’s workers, farmers, fishermen, domestics, and so on. The education of a nation is vested in that nation’s engineers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, accountants, business executives, and so on. The special qualities of each group are not exclusive. There are highly intelligent workers, and there are very strong and active professional people.

What’s wrong with the old? It’s not working. Why is it when every science is advancing, are we still stuck with the old penology? It used to work, so why doesn’t it work any more? Because there has been a change of attitude brought about by the academicians. The old penology has been changed by them and it is now less effective.

Man coolly walks in to office, and out with laptop and video game... Unwanted publicity about the lack of security at the Charles Bartlett Hyde complex building, located on Mahogany Street, which houses three of Belize’s major revenue collection agencies, including the Income Tax Department, GST and Agriculture Cooperative, has resurfaced.

Bus driver, passengers held up on Western Highway; gunman beaten and stabbed to death; accomplice, armed with hand grenade, escapes! The Cayo District has been the scene of many brazen holdups in recent memory, but each time, the robbers seem to be producing new heights of terror for their victims, as on Sunday night around 7:15, two robbers, thought to be Guatemalans, attempted a daring holdup and robbery on a bus on the Western Highway in San Jose Succotz village, just outside of Benque Viejo del Carmen Town.

On April 1, police formally arrested and charged Juan Salazar, 40, laborer of Camalote village, Cayo district and Michael Rodriguez, 25, surveyor of San Ignacio. Salazar was charged for the crimes of abetment to commit robbery and failed to prevent a felony, and Rodriguez was charged for the crimes of failed to prevent a felony and conspiracy to commit robbery.

Armed robbery successful at the Spanish Lookout Scotia Bank Branch …next door to the police station! Shotgunned security guard was unarmed... The sheer brazenness of the armed robbery, which has resulted in a murder, and left one woman a grieving, very pregnant widow, has shocked a nation that has gotten used to brazen armed robberies.

Amount stolen was not released... What should have been a normal winding-down of the working day at the Social Security Belize City Branch on Princess Margaret Drive was cut short by the run-and-gun tactics of two armed robbers as they made their way into the compound, and escaped with a so-far undisclosed amount of money.

Career criminal nabbed through quick police work... Hundreds of Guats come through the border daily – 75% of baggage searched... An alien teen who came to Belize from Melchor de Mencos, Guatemala, to burglarize unsuspecting Belmopan residents, was caught red-handed on Tuesday, after breaking and entering into the home of a single woman, who teaches in Belize City, and while attempting to enter the home of a couple just across the road on Honey Camp Street, in Belmopan.

A policeman and 2 soldiers on city patrol parked their car and slept. When they awoke, an M-16 rifle had disappeared! The Belize Defence Force only just last week confirmed the recovery of an M4 carbine stolen from its guard room at Price Barracks in January, and now, someone has stolen yet another “big gun” from the BDF, early Saturday morning from a soldier who was literally “sleeping on the job.”

This afternoon, two accused murders, brothers Gilbert and Nelson Martinez, walked out of the Supreme Court as free men after Crown Counsel Elizabeth Purcell threw in the towel and entered a nolle prosequi in the murder trial that started last week Monday in the Supreme Court of Justice John Troaido Gonzalez.