THE CONCEPT OF POPASAANGU CUSTOMARY LAW IN THE SETTLEMENT OF CHILD CRIMINAL OFFENSES IN INDONESIA

Many cases of juvenile criminal offenses occur and are not necessarily resolved thru formal processes. This is because the implementation of restorative justice thru diversion, which was expected to provide a win-win solution at the police, prosecutor's office, and court levels as mandated by the Juvenile Criminal Justice Act, has not yet met public expectations. The type of research used in the preparation of this dissertation proposal is empirical legal research. The urgency of this research is to formulate the concept of resolving minor crimes committed by children within the Popasaangu Fikiri custom. This research uses the type of empirical legal research. The research results show that philosophically, Popasaangu Fikiri is based on the worldview of indigenous communities that highly value balance, humanity, and social harmony. Justice is understood not as retribution, but as the restoration of honor and social relationships thru three main stages: recognition of wrongdoing, apology and forgiveness, and the reaffirmation of social relationships. The novelty of this research lies in the discovery of a restorative-communal conceptual model for resolving minor criminal offenses by children, where Popasaangu Fikiri not only serves as a mechanism for customary peace but also as a social recovery legal system that unites moral, social, and legal values within a single customary justice process. This model differs from the concept of restorative justice in the modern juvenile justice system because it emphasizes restoring honor and social balance, rather than simply repairing harm or mediating between the offender and the victim. Thus, Popasaangu Fikiri makes a new conceptual contribution to the development of a customary law-based paradigm for resolving child criminal cases that is humanistic, participatory, and socially just.