<![CDATA[Criminal law enforcement in Indonesia is undergoing a paradigmatic shift from a retributive approach toward a restorative one that emphasizes the recovery of relationships among offenders, victims, and the community, rather than punishment alone. One legal instrument accommodating this shift within the police institution is Police Regulation Number 8 of 2021 concerning the Handling of Criminal Acts Based on Restorative Justice. This article normatively examines the legal standing, requirements, mechanisms, and problems of applying restorative justice within police investigations under that regulation. The study employs normative legal research using statutory and conceptual approaches, analyzed descriptively and prescriptively. The findings show that the regulation provides technical guidance for investigators to terminate investigations by operation of law based on restorative justice, yet several normative issues remain, including ambiguity in the formulation of material and formal requirements, hierarchical inconsistency between the regulation and the Criminal Procedure Code, and the absence of adequate external oversight over investigators' discretion. Strengthening restorative-justice-based law enforcement requires regulatory harmonization, capacity building for investigators, and the institutionalization of participatory oversight mechanisms so that restorative justice does not become a space for the abuse of authority.]]>
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