Restorative Justice in Settling Criminal Case: A Normative-Empirical Study of the Law

Restorative Justice: Some Facts and History

Purpose: The short-term objective expected from this research is to find the root of legal problems regarding the legal regulation of Restorative Justice, while the long-term objective of this research is that it can be an appropriate and effective framework in the application of Restorative Justice in the Indonesian criminal justice system. Methods: The research used is normative legal research: Analysing legal materials and legislation to understand the legal position of Restorative Justice through statutory and conceptual approaches. Theoretical Reference: The theory used in this research is restorative justice theory. Result and Conclusion: The results of the research The concept of Restorative Justice has been regulated in various laws and regulations in Indonesia, such as regulations of the Supreme Court, the Attorney General's Office, and the Indonesian National Police. However, these regulations have not been unified into one comprehensive law, resulting in legal uncertainty. Experts define Restorative Justice as a process that involves victims, perpetrators, and other relevant parties to find a fair solution and return the situation to its original state. The concept is in line with calls for alternative dispute resolution and community involvement in resolving conflicts. The implementation of Restorative Justice requires legal reform to accommodate its principles within the existing criminal justice system. This research highlights the need for comprehensive legislation on Restorative Justice in Indonesia. It provides a basis for further research into the implementation and effectiveness of Restorative Justice in criminal cases in Indonesia. Implications of research: This research highlights the need for comprehensive legislation on Restorative Justice in Indonesia. This study provides a basis for implementation and effectiveness of Restorative Justice in criminal cases in Indonesia. Mediators facilitate clear communication between perpetrators and victims. Restorative Justice aims for restoration and redemption outside court. It addresses legal problems arising from crimes. Restorative principles provide fairness and legal benefits. Originality: This paper discusses restorative justice in the criminal justice system. It emphasises the involvement of victims and offenders in the resolution process. Restorative justice aims for restoration, reconciliation and healing. This approach seeks to empower victims and communities. There are several articles that discuss restorative justice. an article entitled restorative justice as an alternative to criminal offence resolution and its influence in the criminal justice system written by heny saida discusses restorative justice that ignores victim recovery.

Restorative justice is a movement with traction. People are excited by it. They are volunteering in growing numbers to make it happen. Some people are even getting paid to do it, especially in schools, and usually through nonprofits like Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth, Community Works, and the Insight Prison Project (all discussed in this issue). Marilyn Armour’s article (page 25) sums up the progress so far.Its practitioners say the movement’s innovative practices have immediate benefits and radical long-term potential.There is hope, first, that it will keep young people and especially young people of color out of the criminal justice system, out of the school-to-prison pipeline. Once that is well under way, many believe that other visions will appear possible, all the way to the end of prisons as we know them and a reconception of the entire legal system (see Peter Gabel’s piece on page 18). Many hope this movement can also provide new ways of responding both to conflicts in general (Kay Pranis, page 33) and to the inherited oppressive structures of race and class (see Fania Davis’s piece on page 30, Denise Breton’s on page 45).Restorative justice may be poised for a breakthrough into public awareness. It would be a boon for budget-cutting politicians and taxpayers if only the public could buy into it. For example, in the San Francisco Bay Area it costs around $50,000 to run a juvenile offender through the justice system, not counting the cost of incarceration if there is to be any, versus about $4,500 for a restorative process that typically leaves the victim much more satisfied, the young person reintegrated into the community without even being charged with a crime and much less likely to reoffend, and many community members relieved and grateful. Multiply the criminal justice cost many times for adults locked away for years.But the rub is, punishment is nowhere seen in this process—unless, when you have harmed someone, you consider listening to them express their pain to be punishment, rather than a chance to develop empathy for them, see yourself in a different light, and learn and change in whatever way you now perceive is needed. Some consider that process tougher even than receiving punishment. Others think it’s being “soft on crime.”Can a justice movement not based on punishment grow fast enough to win at the ballot box, even in an über-liberal city? In September the New York Times noted that “Restorative justice has long had proponents in some corners of the criminal justice system, but it is now gaining prominence in an unlikely forum: the San Francisco district attorney’s race.” We go to press too soon to know the result.Or will restorative justice appeal more to small-government and traditional-values conservatives? Some of its elements do appeal to the Right, others to reformist liberals, others to radicals, including prison abolitionists. Of course, there are also elements that each of these players may dislike or hate. And no one will resist it more than the prison-industrial complex and the politicians in its pockets.How it is presented by the media will be critical, but perhaps not decisive: it is how well it works in practice, in those places innovative enough to fund it, that will likely be decisive.Most articles in this issue come from progressive and radical activists, scholars, lawyers, and teachers who are writing wholly from within the restorative justice movement. We are centering their voices because it is they who have both the strongest hope for the transformative power of the movement and the most practical understanding of how the vision of restorative justice can take shape on the ground.While most restorative justice practitioners initially seem to present a unified front, there are certainly differences among them if you listen more closely. Some authors in this issue raise controversial issues within the movement directly, others by inference only. If they criticize anyone, notice how gently they do so. The movement has only got where it has by its practitioners’ commitment to reach out to the humanity in the other, to listen, to suggest and not to judge. A South Asian Buddhist goes to a conservative Florida town to support white Christians in developing a groundbreaking restorative approach to plea bargaining in a murder case (page 22). A survivor of child abuse works with prisoners in San Quentin prison, most of them serving life sentences for violent crimes (page 35). These practitioners could not do their groundbreaking work if they allowed either left-wing or right-wing stereotypes of prosecutors, conservative Christians, or lifers to cloud their vision. That doesn’t mean that restorative practitioners are blind to the realities of power and white supremacy, the legacies of genocide and slavery, the depredations of profiteers, or the violence inherent in the structure of our prison system. But their whole practice is to reach across any divide and connect, empathically.I am writing this article from a slightly different place, as a kind of sympathetic cartographer of the movement. I have felt drawn to restorative justice since first writing about it in Tikkun (September/October 2009) and have started to attend trainings in the field. So with one foot planted inside the restorative justice movement as a student and the other in more journalistic territory, I am hoping to offer a different perspective: a beginner’s bird’s-eye glance at some of the controversial issues both outside and within the movement, and at factors that may be enabling it to gather traction. I am offering this analysis not in a spirit of divisiveness but with the genuine hope that it will help readers who have never heard of the restorative justice movement to grasp the diversity of worldviews within it and understand where opposition and support are likely to arise. It is important for those within the movement to understand ways in which restorative justice is seen by individuals and groups from different places on the political spectrum, from conservative to moderate, and liberal to radical.Once restorative justice becomes a well-known policy option, I assume that small-government conservatives will welcome the budget savings and tax relief, provided they can be convinced that diversions from prison are not dangerous to society. The remarkable experience of New Zealand, which for over twenty years has run its entire juvenile justice system on restorative principles, and has closed its juvenile detention centers, should reassure them. As this experience is not well known in the United States, we are delighted to share an excellent survey of it by one its leading proponents, Judge Fred McElrea, as an online-only article accompanying this print issue.Many social conservatives, especially of a traditional Christian bent, already warm to the notion of bringing offenders to a point of remorse and genuine accountability, and then to redemption, a true change of heart. Chuck Colson, one of the players in the Watergate scandal (long since reformed as a born-again Christian), is considered by many to be America’s leading prison reformer as well as one of its leading Christian conservatives. Excoriating overcrowding and inhuman conditions, Colson signs on to a faith-based strand of restorative justice.However, the centrality of religious conversion to Colson’s version of restorative justice presents a concern for the mainstream movement. Further, conservative philosophy typically blames the individual’s sinful human nature rather than environmental factors in generating crime. Mainstream restorative justice operates from a different model. It is based neither on a medical model of the pathology of the offender, nor on a Christian model of the offender’s sinful nature and dependence on a Higher Power. Instead, a model of mainstream restorative justice is more likely to include concepts such as mutuality, respect, active listening, empathy for ourselves and those we have harmed or been harmed by, a focus on self-empowerment and attendance to the deeper needs of those involved, and the questioning and unlearning of prevailing punitive belief systems. For instance, the behavioral changes noted in violent men through mainstream restorative practices typically result from their coming to understand how they developed strategies to survive child abuse, poverty, racism, police brutality, or other environmental stresses and bought into the prevailing “male role belief system”; from this understanding, as well as from the care of peers and facilitators, flows empathy for their younger selves and then for their victims. The hope of many restorative justice practitioners is that such transformed men (and women) will become participants in reforming the social conditions and inequities that so restricted their options, in addition to practicing emotional maturity in their daily relationships.Many Christians find this development of empathy and social responsibility entirely compatible with Christianity, whether it involves Christian belief or not, but this is not the typical Christian conservative view. However, to an observer like me, both Colsonesque and mainstream restorative justice seem to have much in common—both believe in the individual’s ability to change. As more violent offenders transform themselves through both paths and meet and talk, I assume there will be cross-fertilization.Still, many conservatives who do believe in redemption see it as entirely compatible with punishment. Anyone harmed by crime is likely to feel colossal anger and so traditional notions of “an eye for an eye” will always have great appeal, especially if no mechanisms exist for satisfying the victim’s needs for empathy, answers, or restoration. If restorative options start to divert large numbers from prison, conservative investors in the prison-industrial complex will surely mobilize to protect their investment. They are likely to fund emotive appeals for punishment, many of them in traditional (and selective) biblical terms, and possibly with racist overtones.The essence of mainstream restorative justice is a practice of listening and empathy that is by nature corrosive of ideology and self-righteousness. Thus, combining thorough personal accountability with an understanding of the ways one’s environment has molded one is a complex task, not easily assimilated into some conservatives’ worldview. But that may change.On balance, I assume that most hardcore conservatives will not go for mainstream restorative justice. However, many middle-of-the-road people, including many evangelical Christians, may well support it when they see how well it works for crime victims they know and for any of their own relatives and friends who are arrested for offenses. In a recent case it was remarkable how quickly some police families came around to wanting a restorative justice option when one of their own kids was caught in a possible offense. If approval grows in middle America, it will mainly be because of positive personal experiences that will contradict the media stereotypes and polemics approving punitive justice.The appeal for liberals may be obvious: take better care of victims; drastically reduce the prison system; spend the money on education and public aid instead; reject ugly emotions of revenge; and reintegrate offenders into the community where they can lead productive lives and pay taxes.But what would liberals make of Peter Gabel’s vision of an astonishingly different kind of legal system? Some might feel that’s going too far. That’s to admit that fear of the other has been central to the liberal project all along. That’s to allow that the vaunted rationality of liberalism never has been free of emotion, but has too often been put to the service of a set of fears that serve neither love nor connection. To consciously serve love might be to infect public discourse with emotionality, spirituality, and even religion, in something of a creeping revolution.Something that’s too revolutionary for many liberals should sound good to radical anti-racists and anti-capitalists. Yet, there is something highly distasteful, or suspect, about restorative justice for many radicals.The greatest difficulty for the radical Left is implicit in Fania E. Davis’s words in this issue: “I would say this movement is more subversive than any of the revolutionary movements in which I have been involved since the 1950s. All previous social justice movements have kept us trapped in discordant, binary, either-or, right-wrong, and us-versus-them ways of being present to one another and to the earth.” Binaries are as central to the Left as they are to the Right. Many people have considered Right and Left to be equally self-righteous, equally prone to demonize the other side.It’s not just that someone like Sunny Schwartz (page 37) works for the sheriff’s department and expresses a vision for how corrections can become a noble profession, which looks to many radicals like collaboration with the imperialist and racist state. It’s also that restorative justice seeks to foster a sense of personal accountability in individuals who have perpetrated crimes. Doing so requires more focus on individuals—including on convicted members of oppressed races and classes—than some radicals are comfortable with. Some fear that restorative justice’s focus on individual accountability suggests that it’s the individuals’ fault they are in prison, not the fault of the system.If you imagine that Sunny Schwartz is compromising too much with the American empire, it is worth noting that the central anti-violence teaching in her program is provided by Manalive, which was developed by Hamish Sinclair. Sinclair cut his teeth organizing coal miners and their families in eastern Kentucky and autoworkers in Detroit in the 1960s who were all losing their union jobs as capital sought higher returns elsewhere. He saw his part of the Detroit resistance movement destroyed by the violent objections of union men toward women in their lives who wanted to share in the organizing. Sinclair dedicated his life to building programs for working-class men that would enable them to opt out of the “male role belief system,” in order to organize effectively with women when the times became conducive to organizing once more. Personal accountability and political organizing are two equal sides of Sinclair’s coin; he understands that neither comes easily and neither is complete without the other. One could argue that failure to grasp this has been the bane of most revolutions by radical utopians and of most elected social democratic parties as well. Animal Farm tells the classic tale of revolutionaries who both demonize the oppressor and, because they harbor romantic notions about the ability of the oppressed to be loving and just when they gain power, fail to learn the skills of accountability, empathy, and self-restraint (which a program like Sinclair’s Manalive teaches to highly competitive men).Combining thorough personal accountability with an understanding of the ways one’s environment has molded one is a complex task, not easily assimilated into some radicals’ worldviews. But that may change.Prison abolitionists argue that our current prison system is unreformable. Critical Resistance, a national grassroots group seeking to dismantle the prison-industrial complex, writes:Groups like these that see the restorative justice movement as already too fatally implicated in the criminal justice system (and unrealistic in its idea that there was anything good to be restored in the first place) tend instead to rally around the idea of “transformative justice.”Unlike restorative justice projects, which are often related in some way to the criminal justice system, either as an intervention meant to prevent incarceration or as an effort partly within the prisons to promote healing of offenders and victims, transformative justice projects tend to focus on creating a community-based system wholly outside the prison and courts system, thereby resonating more strongly with the prison abolitionist movement.Each side in this debate can push the other’s buttons. Failure to be sufficiently adversarial toward the criminal injustice system can look unconscionable to transformative justice activists. The use of more adversarial language and practices (e.g., in transformative justice, survivors making demands on those who have harmed them) and a perceived excess of theory over empathic practice can make restorative justice people doubt how transformative these other folks really are.But as Bench Ansfield and Timothy Colman’s article on a Philadelphia-based transformative justice project makes clear (page 41), at the heart of both is the development of empathic practices that work, that increase the sense of safety for survivors of violence, and that help those who perpetrated the harm to change. People who line up on both the restorative and transformative sides of the spectrum already meet and talk, and will do this more as their movements grow. Again, the focus on empathic listening will make it more likely that they will hear each other. Insofar as restorative practices actually work, transformative justice projects will adapt and adopt them, and vice versa.To me, both look like unfinished attempts at the same kind of thing, but starting from different positions in society as well as about society. Many restorative justice proponents start as professionals already in the system (the justice system or the school system—see Rita Alfred’s piece on page 48), who try to work it so that programs can get under way. While their methods may be those of reformers, working with district attorneys, within prisons, grade schools, or law schools, they have hugely transformative dreams. To them, the criticism from prison abolitionists may seem understandable but premature. Both movements, if successful, can end with prisons abolished, or reduced to housing only a tiny number of specific cases; one restorative justice lawyer speculated to me that this number might be as small as 2,000 people in the United States but added that the debate was fruitless at this point because it will be a matter of what works and how well we manage to create alternative methods for keeping people safe and transforming violent behavior. The movements are complementary, this viewpoint holds.And it does behoove restorative justice people to think how they would do things if there were no state-violence sanctions at all in the background of their work: If the alternative to a family or community circle were not criminal charges, or if there were no literally for role would there be enough for enough violent offenders to does a community do with those who an offender is in the community and no one is going to the what sanctions of of can be to to the person to a community It certainly may get to sound a But working out how to do this is a that many restorative justice people already we think of as radical on what we think the the of human to be in human nature as for by or is it or racism, or failure to For evangelical Christians, being is the most radical For some left-wing activists, does not sound radical For others it’s the that is the it suggests traditional of victim and offender, even of and when what is is to such notions and to the radical that has the same set of human is different strategies to meet their and to and to actually result in reduced safety and violence (see article on page of this there are and people feel strongly about them. However, in with restorative and transformative justice practitioners on different places on the spectrum, I have to criticize the they all seem their own visions them, they have much to to each other. is entirely within the empathic of these movements, and them from those whether on the Left or the Right, adversarial is different in restorative justice from other organizing. of that movement have their is this growing more becomes clear as soon as you to the They are less likely to theory than they are to you of and they are it is them experiences that they to deeper and the to One central practice is the in which can be heard and no one practitioners have different ways of A may be on the with of the and A or or other words that to the of those present may be A may be each person in a set by the They may start by how they the circle to what it should what they from the others in order to feel safe enough to what kind of respect, they on the circle goes to the it has been from a person who has been on a to the how well the has been or other inherent to that find that the circle structure them to more how it People and then their own of pain and A offender is to find that in the circle to how to the harm he has he can as long as he needs the district a to see how the process it is his to do so. A has already been with the that in the circle will be as should the case go to A was by a up the free A young who two and returns two years to offer because his is and he to make a he to pay the families in for what he and by his to spend the money on for and his to help the of abuse he has this becomes part of the he to criminal practices and of are the of the movement. However, it is not growing because the are and to all but also because they are and can find in juvenile and their is in of and in like reduced These practices do not on but can be so that from within the community and does not have to come from from a the same how much to and is an issue that may become and and is and there be ways of working out who has a debate on the of the versus other terms, it’s worth at September on his is one of the movement’s and leading One of his is to a by who of those who would like to the when restorative practices are not to the criminal justice on that another in the and the difficulty of such issues in the movement, which he started if there might be a strand of in the issues of justice, accountability, are issues not in of over too find a to the Christian movements that in I has been more with belief than most but it has always had that were most with behavioral emotional or may be of concern to such has been a likely of such movements, and so has resistance among and white proponents to questioning their own But in other such movements, love with the and the we saw in has people into for including and building the to me that restorative practices are a version of these movements of personal this movement is in and to be to people of all and but it is as as its practitioners it to radical of empathic listening and makes it with or a with any kind of version of personal is also much more strongly to of social racism, and inherited If the movement to like Fania who for in the movement to themselves more in the and in the ways the criminal justice system is as a new then we will start to have the kind of of personal change with change that many of us have been for years is the only way a society can be

This journal discusses the Legal Review of the Implementation of Restorative Justice in the Prosecution Process of Embezzlement Cases at the Lubuklinggau City District Attorney's Office. The main problem is How is the legal review of the implementation of restorative justice in the process of prosecuting embezzlement cases at the Lubuklinggau City District Attorney's Office. What are the obstacles of the Lubuklinggau City District Attorney's Office to the implementation of restorative justice in the process of prosecuting embezzlement cases. How are the considerations of the victim so that they choose to resolve the case with the restorative justice mechanism in the process of prosecuting embezzlement cases. This type of research is normative-empirical. Normative-empirical (applied) legal research is research that examines the implementation or implementation of positive legal provisions (legislation) and written documents in action (factual) in every particular legal event that occurs in society. The minimum approach that must be present in normative-empirical legal research is a conceptual approach, a statutory approach, because there is no research that does not start from the concepts and applicable statutory regulations, then supplemented with one or more approaches in empirical legal research. Data collection techniques include; collection of secondary data (literature and written documents) through library studies and document studies and collection of primary data (data on the object of research conducted) through interviews with respondents and informants and sources, questionnaires or lists of questions and observations of the research location to be conducted. This study concludes that the Lubuklinggau City District Attorney's Office has implemented restorative justice in the prosecution process of the embezzlement case with the defendant Sulaiman at the Lubuklinggau City District Attorney's Office carried out in full in accordance with the Attorney General's Regulation Number 15 of 2020 and the Circular Letter of JAM-Pidum (Junior Attorney General for General Crimes) Number: 01/E/EJP/02/2022 concerning the Implementation of Termination of Prosecution Based on Restorative Justice. During its implementation, not all criminal cases can be resolved with restorative justice at the Lubuklinggau City District Attorney's Office. There are conditions that must be met by the victim as explained in the Attorney General's Regulation Number 15 of 2020. The fulfillment of obligations shows that the implementation of the Attorney General's Regulation Number 15 of 2020 creates justice for the parties, namely victims, suspects, families and the community. In addition, a peace agreement through termination of prosecution based on restorative justice is considered successful if the suspect has fulfilled his obligations to the victim or other matters have been fulfilled in accordance with the peace agreement that has been made in writing.

This study discusses the limits of authority of the police and prosecutors in implementing restorative justice in criminal cases. The Indonesia National Police, the Attorney General Office of the Republic of Indonesia, have implemented the principle of restorative justice as a form of dealing with criminal cases. The Indonesian National Police makes further regulations for each law enforcement agency with the principle of restorative justice which will be used as a guide in handling criminal cases, including Circular Letter of The Chief of Indonesia National Police No. SE/8/VII/2018 of 2018, The Chief of Indonesia National Police Regulation No. 6 of 2019, the Attorney General Regulation No. 15 of 2020. To analyze and understand restorative justice and the limitations of the police and prosecutor's authority in the criminal justice system, this study uses a normative legal research method, the data obtained through a literature study. The results show that restorative justice must be accompanied by an understanding of the concept of police discretion, because there is a relationship between discretion and restorative justice. The statement of reconciliation between the perpetrator and the victim contained in the statement letter should be the basis for investigators to terminate the investigation (SP3) other than those stipulated in Article 109 of the Criminal Procedure Code and the case is considered completed in Law Number 16 of 2004 concerning the Attorney Office of the Republic of Indonesia, in Article 35 letter c. The Attorney General of the Republic of Indonesia has released a regulation concerning Termination of Prosecution Based on Restorative Justice as contained in the Attorney General Regulation Number 15 of 2020. Based on this regulation, the public prosecutor has a strong legal basis for terminating prosecution of defendants in certain criminal acts and if between the victim and the defendant have an agreement to make peace.

This research aims to determine the position of restorative justice in the criminal justice system in Indonesia and to determine the application of restorative justice in the criminal justice system. This type of research uses empirical legal research, empirical legal research is a legal research method that functions to see the law in real terms and examine how law works in society. The position of restorative justice in the criminal justice system in Indonesia can provide justice that focuses on the needs of the victims, perpetrators of crimes, and also involves community participation, and does not merely fulfill legal provisions or merely impose criminal penalties. In this case, the victim is also involved in the process, while the perpetrator of the crime is also encouraged to take responsibility for his actions, namely by correcting the mistakes he has made. The implementation of restorative justice in the criminal justice system can be seen from various policies and laws and regulations currently in force, but in reality there are inconsistencies between enforcement officials in implementing restorative justice in a case. In fact, many cases ignore restorative justice and result in the criminal being convicted.

The development of the criminal justice system in Indonesia, which was previously implemented with a retributive system, has not been fully able to fulfill the sense of justice for the community. A policy was issued with a restorative justice system that is oriented towards justice, considering that victims of criminal acts can not only experience material losses but are very likely to experience immaterial losses. The definition of restorative justice is an effort to provide a restoration of relationships and redemption of mistakes that the perpetrator of the crime (his family) wants to do to the victim of the crime (his family) with peace efforts outside the court. The intent and purpose are that legal problems that arise as a result of the criminal act can be resolved properly by reaching an agreement between the parties so that there is no element of revenge. This research is a type of normative juridical research, with the specification of descriptive analysis research. It uses research methods obtained by researchers indirectly through intermediary media and using library techniques, in analyzing the formulation of the problem using the theory of law application and the theory of legal protection. Restorative justice is currently not only a concern of the police and the Attorney General’s Office, but also the Supreme Court and several agencies in the Criminal Justice System in Indonesia. This can be seen from the issuance of a Joint Memorandum of Understanding between the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Indonesia, the Minister of Law and Human Rights of the Republic of Indonesia, the Attorney General of the Republic of Indonesia, the Chief of Police of the Republic of Indonesia Number 131/KMA/SKB/X/2012 Concerning the Implementation of the Application of Adjustments to the Limits of Minor Crimes, the Amount of Fines, Fast Examination Procedures, and the Application of Restorative Justice and Supreme Court Regulation Number 1 of 2024 concerning Guidelines for Trying Criminal Cases Based on Restorative Justice. This requires special attention to the implementation of handling every criminal case that prioritizes restorative justice, because there is a conflict of norms in its application and handling since it is contrary to the Criminal Procedure Code. So, an ideal concept is needed in the criminal justice system in Indonesia, namely its handling by the law enforcement institution of the Attorney General’s Office.

This study aims to investigate the implementation of Restorative Justice in accordance with the Regulation of the Republic of Indonesia's Prosecutor's Office Number 15 of 2020 concerning Discontinuation of Prosecution Based on Restorative Justice in cases of theft within the family scope handled by the Buleleng District Prosecutor's Office. Restorative Justice is an alternative approach to conflict resolution that focuses on relationship restoration and social recovery through active participation of all parties involved. The research method used in this study is empirical legal research. The study aims to analyze the implementation, obstacles, and efforts made by the Buleleng District Prosecutor's Office in handling theft cases resolved through Restorative Justice. The results of this study indicate that the process of implementing Restorative Justice in theft cases within the family scope handled by the Public Prosecutor in the Buleleng District Prosecutor's Office, although encountering obstacles or challenges, has been carried out well in terms of procedural aspects. However, not all criminal cases can be resolved through Restorative Justice; there are conditions that must be met in accordance with the Regulation of the Republic of Indonesia's Prosecutor's Office Number 15 of 2020 concerning Discontinuation of Prosecution Based on Restorative Justice

Resolving several years of criminal offenses using a "restorative justice" mechanism has been hotly discussed recently. Restorative justice or restorative justice is the process of resolving criminal acts. This criminal problem resolution model involves all parties to find justice and restore the situation between the perpetrator and the victim. One of the functions of law is as "a tool of dispute settlement", various disputes can occur in society. As for the ways of resolving disputes in a society, some are resolved through formal institutions called courts. Resolving criminal acts through restorative justice is carried out from the level of investigation and investigation at the police to the prosecutor's office. These two law enforcement agencies have regulated the process and procedures for resolving criminal acts through restorative justice mechanisms. So it is hoped that this settlement model can reduce the number of cases handled by the courts, as well as reduce the burden of state costs for resolving criminal acts. Restorative justice is regulated in the Republic of Indonesia State Police Regulation Number 8 of 2021 concerning Handling of Criminal Acts Based on Restorative Justice and Article 1 number 1 of the Republic of Indonesia Prosecutor's Regulation Number 15 of 2020 concerning Termination of Prosecution Based on Restorative Justice. In these two regulations, the resolution of criminal cases by prioritizing restorative justice emphasizes restoration to its original state and a balance of protection and interests of victims and perpetrators of criminal acts that is not oriented towards retribution. This is an effort to reform the criminal justice system in order to realize the goals of just law. There are several criminal justice system models in the world, Control Criminal Model, Doe process of law Model and Family model, of course this justice system will be able to determine what resolution is appropriate to the criminal justice system, which is closer to restorative justice is the family model, a family approach resolving criminal cases by deliberation and consensus as intended by the fourth principle of Pancasila. A justice system with a family model involving all parties accommodates the interests of all parties, so that the original situation is restored after the case between the perpetrator and the victim. Basically, the model for resolving criminal cases outside of court, which carries the spirit of restorative justice, began to be implemented in the mid-1970s. One model for resolving criminal cases outside of court based on restorative justice is the Victim Offenders Mediation (VOM) program. The VOM program was first implemented in 1970 in North America and Europe such as Norway and Finland. VOM is a process that provides the victim's willingness as the subject of crime and violence to meet with the perpetrator, in a safe and orderly atmosphere with the aim of making the perpetrator directly responsible in the form of compensation to the victim.

Restorative justice is often understood as a form of approach in resolving a criminal case involving the perpetrator, victim, and other parties such as family, or the community and does not focus on imprisonment, but rather on restoring the victim's condition after the crime has occurred. The Indonesian government has implemented restorative justice in the criminal justice system. Explicitly, restorative justice is stated in Law of the Republic of Indonesia Number 11 of 2012 concerning the Juvenile Criminal Justice System and Regulation of the Republic of Indonesia National Police Number 8 of 2021 concerning Handling of Criminal Acts based on Restorative Justice, recorded in the State Gazette of the Republic of Indonesia in 2021 Number 947. This study aims to determine the model of approach and inhibiting factors in the application of restorative justice in resolving criminal cases. This research is an empirical legal research. The data collection technique was by interviewing informants, and the data analysis used was qualitative analysis. The results of the study show: (1) The restorative justice approach has been implemented at the Kupang City Police by paying attention to values ​​and based on the Pancasila ideology. (2) The implementation of restorative justice in the police is carried out in two models, namely victim offender meeting and Conferencing. (3) the implementation of restorative justice in the police found 3 inhibiting factors, namely legal factors, law enforcement factors themselves and community factors.

Restorative justice is often understood as a form of approach in resolving a criminal case involving the perpetrator, victim, and other parties such as family, or the community and does not focus on imprisonment, but rather on restoring the victim's condition after the crime has occurred. The Indonesian government has implemented restorative justice in the criminal justice system. Explicitly, restorative justice is stated in Law of the Republic of Indonesia Number 11 of 2012 concerning the Juvenile Criminal Justice System and Regulation of the Republic of Indonesia National Police Number 8 of 2021 concerning Handling of Criminal Acts based on Restorative Justice, recorded in the State Gazette of the Republic of Indonesia in 2021 Number 947. This study aims to determine the model of approach and inhibiting factors in the application of restorative justice in resolving criminal cases. This research is an empirical legal research. The data collection technique was by interviewing informants, and the data analysis used was qualitative analysis. The results of the study show: (1) The restorative justice approach has been implemented at the Kupang City Police by paying attention to values ​​and based on the Pancasila ideology. (2) The implementation of restorative justice in the police is carried out in two models, namely victim offender meeting and Conferencing. (3) the implementation of restorative justice in the police found 3 inhibiting factors, namely legal factors, law enforcement factors themselves and community factors.

COMMUNITY-BASED AND RESTORATIVE-JUSTICE INTERVENTIONS TO REDUCE OVER-POLICING

The policy of the criminal justice system based on the Diversion and Restorative Justice criminal justice system has been regulated in Law no. 11 of 2012 concerning the Juvenile Criminal Justice System (UU SPPA) prioritizes peace over the formal legal process. The essential changes include the use of a Restorative Justice approach through a diversion system. The purpose of this paper is to analyze and describe the implementation of the policy of the criminal system through restorative justice in Indonesia, especially related to the process of resolving criminal cases and to find out the legal efforts of rehabilitation through community mentors to foster children as perpetrators of criminal acts. This research is included as a normative legal research research using a study approach that examines the problems to be discussed using legal regulations in the form of secondary data (primary, secondary and tertiary legal materials). The analysis was carried out qualitatively and the discussion of the problem formulation using library research. This legal facility aims to anticipate the stigma caused when a child is in conflict with the law, as well as to restore and re-socialize the child. One solution is to divert or place the perpetrators of child crimes out of the criminal justice system and provide an alternative for settlement with a restorative justice approach with assistance carried out by community coaches.

Restorative Justice is an approach to justice that focuses on the needs of the victims and perpetrators of crime, as well as involving the community, not to follow the principle of punishment for the perpetrators accompanied by the consideration of the judges. The principle of Restorative Justice process of the completion of the action a violation of law that occurs is done by bringing victims and offenders together talking. The act of punishment alternative to using the justice restorative should be pursued by the state so that the adhesion of unity of the nation become strong and become potential of socio economic development and politics of the country. The propriety of the imposition of a criminal through the justice restorative so the duty and responsibility of law enforcement to sharpen legal analysis and sensitive conscience of humanity. justice restorative aims to reconcile the conflicting parties. If offenders could be rehabilitated with other measures that better then the punishment should be avoided. In the penalty ta'zir, forgiveness and granting the minimum penalty is the criminal justice system of Islam that can change the penal system of retributive to restorative. This research problem is how the strengthening of restorative justice in the settlement of the criminal case according to Law Number 16 Year 2004 On the Prosecutor's office? How the actualization of the completion of the criminal case through the restorative justice perspective of Islamic Law?. The purpose of this study was to determine the strengthening of restorative justice in the settlement of the criminal case according to Law Number 16 Year 2004 On the Prosecutor's office and find out the actualization of the completion of the criminal case through the restorative justice perspective of Islamic Law. Methods this research was conducted using qualitative research a research process and understanding based on the methodology that investigates a phenomenon of social and human problems. The results of this study concluded, that the strengthening of restorative justice in the settlement of the criminal case according to Law Number 16 Year 2004 On the Prosecutor's office through a mediation that can be used in resolving a criminal case. A new breakthrough in the Indonesian criminal justice system in the completion of a criminal offence outside the court. Keywords: Strengthening of Justice, Restorative Justice, Attorney General and Islamic Law.

The concept of islah in Islamic law emphasizes peaceful conflict resolution through mediation, compromise, and forgiveness—principles that align closely with the restorative justice approach in modern legal systems. This article aims to explore the integration of islah values into the restorative justice framework, as well as how the concept of reconciliation in both positive law and Islamic law can be recontextualized in the contemporary era. This study employs a qualitative method using a normative-juridical and comparative approach based on a literature review of primary and secondary sources, including classical Islamic legal texts (turath), statutory regulations, and policy documents on restorative justice practices in Indonesia and selected Muslim-majority countries. The findings indicate that islah values hold significant potential to enrich restorative justice practices, particularly in strengthening participatory justice and the restoration of social relationships. The recontextualization of reconciliation not only opens space for dialogue between positive law and Islamic law but also offers a more humanistic, contextual, and community-responsive model of conflict resolution. The article recommends enhancing legal regulations to incorporate islah-based approaches within Indonesia's criminal justice system as part of a broader effort to harmonize national legal norms with Islamic values. Its academic contribution lies in providing a constructive foundation for the theoretical and normative integration of islah values into the national legal system through restorative justice while offering a new paradigm for resolving criminal cases in a more contextualized manner.