Legal Policy on the Imposition of Rehabilitation Measures for Victims of Narcotics Misuse Based on Utilitarian Justice

Abstract

The legal treatment of victims of narcotics misuse remains a significant issue in Indonesian criminal law because rehabilitation is legally recognized but its implementation is still influenced by differences in classification, assessment, institutional coordination, and law-enforcement perspectives. This study aims to analyze utilitarian justice as the philosophical basis for rehabilitation measures, examine their implementation through the dimensions of legal substance, legal structure, and legal culture, and analyze rehabilitation policy through the formulation, application, and execution stages of criminal law policy. This research uses normative legal research with statutory, conceptual, and comparative approaches. Legal materials are analyzed qualitatively through grammatical, systematic, and teleological interpretations, while comparative analysis examines rehabilitation policies in Portugal, Malaysia, and Singapore. The results show that rehabilitation is consistent with Bentham’s utilitarian justice when it produces greater benefits than imprisonment through recovery, relapse prevention, social reintegration, and protection of society without eliminating legal responsibility. Its effectiveness depends on clear legal classification, early integrated assessment, coordinated institutional implementation, reasoned prosecutorial and judicial decisions, appropriate medical and social treatment, and post-rehabilitation supervision. The comparative analysis shows that treatment-oriented policies can coexist with firm enforcement against illicit trafficking through differentiated legal pathways, community-based rehabilitation, and continued supervision. The novelty of this study is the formulation of a continuous rehabilitation legal-policy model that connects accurate classification, integrated assessment, reasoned legal decision-making, individualized rehabilitation, periodic evaluation, post-rehabilitation supervision, and social reintegration as a continuous criminal law policy process