Reforming the Indonesian Penal System for Misdemeanor Cases

Abstract

Recently, many criminal cases experienced by the community have been brought to court and captured the attention of the general public. However, criminal acts such as theft may actually cause minimum harm to the victim when the objects of the crime have a low value. The perpetrators of these crimes did harm their victims, but in reality, the Indonesian criminal law system in its empirical aspect still lacks implementation of legal objectives namely; legal certainty, justice and benefit. Therefore, there is a need for the criminal system in Indonesia to no longer rely on criminal sanctions, but opt to administrative sanctions, civil sanctions, and restorative justice approaches (Restorative Justice) instead. The method used in this study is a qualitative socio-legal approach, based on literature data and cyber media. This paper use two approaches: the social approach and the normative juridical approach. This writing concludes that in current conditions, criminal law no longer reflects ultimum remedium, but rather primum remedium. Therefore, the legislative and executive institutions should consider administrative sanctions, civil sanctions, and restorative justice approaches in misdemeanor cases. This idea should also be incorporated in the Indonesian Criminal Code Bill.