Overview

Under Indonesia’s conventional criminal-justice system, core judicial mechanisms generally focus upon the implementation of positive law, assessments of guilt and the administration of punishments in accordance with proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Such an approach tends to place a primary focus on the meting out of punishment as the primary response criminal acts, along with deterrence, denunciation, retribution and community safety in relation to breaches of the law. In this way, punishment becomes the primary vehicle through which society is able to denounce criminal acts, with the severity of the punishment being proportionate to the seriousness of the criminal act. However, this conventional approach has ultimately led to a certain amount of dissatisfaction and frustration across all levels of society as, in several high-profile cases, the conventional criminal-justice system has proved unable to offer any significant justice to society nor protection for the victims of the crimes in question.[1] Furthermore, many have argued that under the conventional criminal-justice system, offenders are not required to confront the full consequences of their decisions and actions as they can traverse the entire criminal-justice process barely speaking more than a few sentences.[2]