Form of Police Discretion in Efforts to Terminate Criminal Cases

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine and analyze the form of implementation of the termination of criminal cases within the scope of the Police as a function of discretion. In this writing, the author uses a normative legal method with research specifications in the form of descriptive analysis. The existence of discretionary authority by the police, the police have the authority to break through a form of legal rigidity that emphasizes the side of legalism alone, without paying attention to the social systems that live in society in achieving a form of real welfare and justice. In fact, police discretion in terms of terminating investigations is carried out by investigators as a response to social phenomena while still adhering to the limits regulated by applicable legal norms. Two conflicting sides of the law are linked to the prevailing legal practice that the use of police discretion is not yet firmly regulated by law, but if the Police accept the withdrawal of the complaint by taking a stance not to continue the case to further legal proceedings (transferring the case file to the prosecutor's office), then in this case the Police have used Discretion with the Restorative Justice method.