Report: The role of socioeconomic factors in Indonesia’s punitive drug policy regime

Over recent decades, Indonesia has pursued a harsh, criminal justice-focused response to the illicit drug trade, imposing lengthy prison sentences for a wide range of drug offences, including use and possession, as well as imposing death sentences and carrying out executions.

This punitive approach is justified by a rationale of deterrence: the belief that sufficiently harsh punishments will deter potential offenders from involvement in drug crime. Yet in practice, the drug trade has continued to flourish, and the punitive approach has resulted in a prison overcrowding crisis and prompted calls for legislative reform.

With support from the University of Oxford’s internal Official Development Assistance (ODA) fund, the Death Penalty Research Unit (DPRU), in partnership with the Indonesian legal organisation LBH Masyarakat, conducted research to investigate the relationship between socioeconomic disadvantage and drug policy in Indonesia. This project also drew on data from a study conducted in collaboration with Atma Jaya University and the Death Penalty Project (DPP).

The research presented in this report was undertaken through interviews with prisoners serving sentences for drug offences and with representatives of civil society organisations working on drug policy and supporting drug offenders.

It seeks to address a knowledge gap regarding the socioeconomic impacts of Indonesia’s current approach to drug policy: who in society is most affected, and how. It examines the role of a range of socioeconomic factors in pathways to criminalisation for drug offences, and the socioeconomic effects of the punitive approach itself.

The report is intended to complement the wider programme of research undertaken by the DPRU and the DPP on drug policy and deterrence in Indonesia, titled ‘Mapping the political economy of drugs and the death penalty in Southeast Asia’ (2023-25), findings from which will be released in early 2026.

	Daniel Cullen and Carolyn Hoyle, The role of socioeconomic factors in Indonesia’s punitive drug policy regime (2025) Full report – English Executive summary – English
	Daniel Cullen dan Carolyn Hoyle, Peran faktor sosial ekonomi dalam rezim kebijakan narkotika punitif di Indonesia (2025) Full report – Indonesian Executive summary – Indonesian

Photo credit: Nathan Hughes via Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons CC BY 2.0.