Reconstructing Indicators of Narcotics Law Enforcement Effectiveness in North Sumatra through a Criminal Network Disruption Approach

Abstract

Narcotics law enforcement in North Sumatra has traditionally been considered effective based on quantitative indicators, including the number of cases uncovered, the number of suspects apprehended, and the quantity of narcotics seized. However, these measurements do not necessarily reflect the actual success of structurally disrupting narcotics criminal networks. This situation creates a gap between the normative objectives of Law Number 35 of 2009 concerning Narcotics and law enforcement practices that remain predominantly focused on the lower levels of criminal networks. This study aims to analyze the construction and limitations of the existing indicators of narcotics law enforcement effectiveness in North Sumatra and to formulate a reconstructed indicator framework oriented toward criminal network disruption. This study employs a normative legal research method using statutory, conceptual, and case approaches. The legal materials are analyzed through a qualitative prescriptive method grounded in Soerjono Soekanto’s theory of legal effectiveness, Lawrence Friedman’s legal system theory, and the concept of criminal network disruption. The findings demonstrate that the existing indicators are biased toward lower level enforcement, afford insufficient attention to asset tracing, fail to measure network resilience, and are undermined by fragmented inter agency data. As an alternative, this study proposes four new indicator dimensions: the ratio of enforcement actions against key actors, the asset confiscation rate, the network resilience index, and the inter agency data integration index. This reconstructed framework is expected to correct biases in institutional performance evaluation and redirect narcotics law enforcement policy in North Sumatra toward the structural and sustainable disruption of criminal networks.