Non-Custodial Sentences in Indonesia’s Sentencing System: Legal Interconnections among Sentencing Purposes, Sentence Execution, and Selective Decarceration

Abstract

The enactment of Law Number 1 of 2023 expands sentencing options through supervisory sentences, fines, and community service sentences. These sentences cannot be evaluated solely on the basis that their execution does not begin in prison. The regulation of convicted persons’ obligations, the execution of judgments, and the legal consequences of noncompliance may maintain a legal connection between these sentences and imprisonment. This study aims to analyze the legal interconnections among sentencing purposes, the imposition and execution of non-custodial sentences, and selective decarceration within Indonesia’s sentencing system. This analytical-prescriptive normative legal study employs the statute approach and the conceptual approach. The analysis classifies the relevant provisions according to sentencing purposes, sentencing requirements, forms of restriction, sentence execution, and legal consequences of noncompliance. The provisions are then examined through grammatical, systematic, and teleological interpretation. The findings demonstrate that the capacity to avoid initial imprisonment must be distinguished from the continued execution of a sentence outside prison. A supervisory sentence remains legally connected to imprisonment. The continued execution of a fine outside prison depends on payment and property enforcement. A community service sentence may replace either short-term imprisonment or a low-level fine, but the consequences of noncompliance depend on the underlying sentence. Selective decarceration is formulated through descriptive, evaluative, and prescriptive dimensions that govern both sentence imposition and legal consequences at the execution stage.