There is little dispute that Preventive Detention Orders (PDOs) are a necessary tool during a State of Emergency (SoE). Faced with organised criminal networks, gang violence, firearms trafficking and coordinated operations that often extend beyond communities and even into the prison system, the State must have the ability to act swiftly when credible intelligence points to an imminent threat.
PDOs were created for precisely those circumstances. They allow authorities to detain individuals without formal charges where intelligence suggests involvement in serious criminal activity that could endanger public safety. Their use has coincided with noticeable reductions in criminal activity during successive SoEs, strengthening the argument that they remain an effective preventive measure.
But while the power to detain may be justified, a growing concern lies in what happens after detention.
Every PDO issued identifies the criminal activity the State is seeking to prevent. The intelligence supporting these orders is considered strong enough to justify depriving a person of liberty for weeks or even months. Naturally, this creates a public expectation that investigators will use that period to develop the evidence necessary to lay criminal charges.
It is here that the gap becomes apparent.
Official Gazette notices from recent emergency periods show a significant difference between the number of people detained and the number ultimately prosecuted. During the SoE from December 2024 to April 2025, 50 individuals were detained under PDOs, but only 13 were later charged. In the emergency period from July 2025 to January 2026, 205 PDOs were approved and 153 executed. Under the current SoE, which began in March 2026, 332 PDOs had already been executed by June, yet only a small fraction of these PDOs have resulted in criminal charges.
This disparity raises legitimate questions about whether intelligence is being consistently converted into court-ready evidence. Detention may remove potentially dangerous individuals from the streets, but it also creates an obligation on the State to ensure that investigations continue and that cases are advanced wherever possible.
Otherwise, when emergency measures expire, individuals who have not been charged must be released, regardless of the suspicions that led to their detention. If intelligence suggested serious criminal involvement, the public is entitled to ask why those cases could not progress further through the criminal justice system.
There are also concerns from the perspective of detainees. Lawyers and civil society groups have questioned the prolonged detention of individuals under emergency regulations, often in difficult conditions and with limited opportunities for courts to examine the allegations against them.
The debate, therefore, is not about whether PDOs should be used. Most citizens accept that extraordinary threats may require extraordinary powers. The more important question is whether those powers are being matched by equally determined efforts to investigate and prosecute.
An SoE should provide law enforcement with the opportunity to build stronger cases against dangerous offenders, not replace the ordinary criminal justice process. Strong preventive action is necessary, but it must be followed by strong prosecution. Otherwise, the gap between detention and justice will continue to widen—and so will public concern about how it is being managed.
