ABSTRACT
The Indonesian National Narcotics Board (NNB) reported that it is estimated that there were 5,000,000 drug abusers in 2015, ± 4% of whom were suspects in drug cases. It was also confirmed that 81,360 of 187,701 prisoners were contributed by drug cases. Prisons are overcrowded, and today Indonesia is in a state of ‘drug emergency’. A qualitative study using documentary research using a descriptive analytical approach was designed to examine the possibility of implementation of restorative justice and diversion to help overcome the problem of drug addicts contributing to prison overcrowding. The concluding points of the study are; first, rehabilitation has not been properly implemented because of the dilemma in determining a drug abuser either as a medical patient or as an offender. There are some dominant factors: unclear definition of user, abuser, addict and victim; no protocol for rehabilitation before adjudication; absence of regulations to that allow minimum hand-carry of drugs for user; and lack of engagement of community in drug rehabilitation program. Second, restorative justice and diversion should be implemented through the Criminal Justice System (CJS) to enable the education of life skills, job training, circle and community conferencing program, even after prison treatment. Third, narcotic law should be amended to: differentiate or strictly define illicit drugs as a serious crime yet drug abuse as a misdemeanour; settle restorative justice and diversion; and reorganise the roles of the Indonesian National Police (INP), NNB, related ministries: Health, Social Affair, Law & Human Rights and local government.
