Juridical analysis of the effectiveness of the investigation of Sailing Approval (SPB) violations at the Ditpolairud Riau Islands Police

Thu, 28 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0700

Purpose: This study analyzes the effectiveness of investigations into Sailing Approval (SPB) violations conducted by the Ditpolairud Riau Islands Police. It seeks to evaluate how well current law enforcement mechanisms ensure maritime safety and legal compliance under the Navigation Law.

Research methodology: The research employs a normative and empirical juridical approach. Data were collected from legislation, literature reviews, and in-depth interviews with investigators, Syahbandar officials, and maritime business operators. The findings were validated through triangulation and analyzed descriptively using John Rawls’ Theory of Justice, Friedman’s Legal System Theory, and Sudikno Mertokusumo’s Legal Certainty Theory.

Results: Investigations into SPB violations have been carried out in accordance with legal procedures, including coordination between Ditpolairud, Syahbandar, PPNS, and prosecutors. While enforcement actions have increased compliance, several challenges remain, such as limited resources, overlapping authority, legal gaps, maladministration, and low awareness among shipowners and fishermen. Digitalization of SPB documents and improved transparency in service fees were identified as key solutions.

Conclusions: The investigations are generally effective but still constrained by structural, substantial, and cultural barriers. Effective enforcement requires harmonized regulations, institutional synergy, technological integration, and public legal awareness to ensure maritime safety and compliance.

Limitations: This study is limited to the jurisdiction of the Riau Islands and relies on qualitative field interviews, without quantitative assessment of enforcement outcomes.

Contribution: The study contributes to maritime law by emphasizing justice, legal certainty, and system effectiveness in SPB investigations, while offering recommendations to improve institutional capacity, transparency, and regulatory alignment.

Juridical analysis of law enforcement on illegal cigarettes in Batam and its impact on state excise revenue

Thu, 28 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0700

Purpose: Analyze law enforcement against illicit cigarettes with counterfeit excise bands in Batam and its impact on excise revenue, framed by Radbruch’s legal certainty, Friedman’s legal system, and Becker’s economics of crime.

Research methodology: A normative–empirical legal approach: review of excise laws and implementing regulations; a case study of KPU BC Batam operations (sea/land patrols, risk-based intelligence); semi-structured interviews with officers; and qualitative analysis of enforcement documents.

Results: Enforcement produced sizable seizures and a clear typology of illicit excisable goods (without bands/counterfeit), yet constraints persist: limited personnel and assets, a vast surveillance area, and increasingly sophisticated modus operandi. Regulatory gaps channel many cases into administrative settlement (state-asset confiscation) with weak deterrence; inter-agency coordination remains uneven; and permissive social norms toward cheaper prices endure. The main impacts are excise revenue leakage, unfair competition for compliant firms, and erosion of tobacco-control objectives.

Conclusions: Legal certainty is not yet achieved due to sanction disparities and inconsistent enforcement; economically, offenders’ expected gains exceed expected penalties. Stronger, predictable, and deterrence-oriented enforcement is required.

Limitations: Evidence is confined to Batam and specific periods; there is no econometric estimate of revenue loss; findings rely on interviews and secondary documents.

Contribution: Integrates legal theory and policy analysis by proposing tighter norms and recalibrated criminal–administrative sanctions, clarified procedures, deeper inter-agency integration, deployment of digital track-and-trace for excise bands, and public education to curb demand, restore the revenue base, and protect fair competition.

Dynamics of Politics and Democracy

Juridical analysis of the effectiveness of the investigation of Sailing Approval (SPB) violations at the Ditpolairud Riau Islands Police

Juridical analysis of law enforcement on illegal cigarettes in Batam and its impact on state excise revenue