The Effectiveness of the Criminal Justice System in Combating Illegal Logging
Keywords:
Criminal Justice System, Criminal Offenses, Illegal Logging.Abstract
Illegal logging remains one of the most persistent environmental crimes in Indonesia, causing serious ecological damage, significant economic losses, and a decline in public trust in law enforcement agencies. Although various legal instruments governing forest protection and environmental management have been enacted, criminal law enforcement against illegal logging offenses has yet to be effectively implemented due to various structural, institutional, and socio-cultural obstacles. This study aims to analyze the effectiveness of the criminal justice system in addressing illegal logging offenses and to formulate an ideal legal policy framework to strengthen forestry law enforcement in Indonesia. This study employs a normative legal methodology using a statutory approach, a conceptual approach, and a case approach. The legal materials utilized consist of primary, secondary, and tertiary sources obtained through library research and analyzed qualitatively. The research findings indicate that the criminal justice system has not functioned optimally in combating illegal logging crimes due to overlapping regulations, weak coordination among law enforcement agencies, limited oversight of forest areas, and the involvement of organized crime networks supported by economic and political power. In practice, law enforcement primarily targets perpetrators at the field level, while corporations and masterminds the primary actors behind forest crimes often evade criminal liability. Furthermore, the discrepancy between legal norms and their implementation highlights a significant gap between the ideal (das sollen) and reality (das sein) in forest law enforcement in Indonesia. This study also found that enhancing the effectiveness of environmental criminal law enforcement requires institutional reform, strengthening an integrated oversight system, optimizing corporate criminal liability, and establishing progressive legal policies that emphasize the principles of environmental justice and sustainable governance. Ultimately, the effectiveness of law enforcement against illegal logging is determined not only by the adequacy of legal regulations, but also by institutional integrity, the community’s legal culture, and the state’s political commitment to maintaining forest sustainability and environmental conservation.
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