Armando Siahaan – Sometimes we applaud the police. Sometimes we criticize their actions. And sometimes we just have no idea what they were thinking.

A perfect example: The National Police's latest anticorruption campaign.

The first measure introduced an anticorruption pin. Don't be fooled. This isn't a PIN, a secret code that unlocks a room stocked with James Bond-like spy gadgets to catch corruptors. No, it's just a pin, a round, yellow accessory that reads "Anti KKN [Corruption, Collusion and Nepotism] and gratification."

All officers in the National Police's detectives unit are required to wear the pin. Visitors have to wear another pin, this one reading "Guests: Do not intervene and bribe."

These pins don't keep track of corruption. They can't zap offenders when bribes change hands. Instead, the pins are meant to act as a moral compass, a badge reminding the wearer of just behavior. "From the chest, we hope that [the message] will go down into their heart," a top policeman explained.

Unless these pins have supernatural powers or some "Manchurian Candidate"-like ability to brainwash the hearts and minds of officials, the accessory sounds like a complete waste of money. They are nothing more than a futile, symbolic gesture to sweet-talk the people into believing the police are serious in rooting out corruption.

Not only that, the super-pin policy came just days after the unit introduced a "well-thought" strategy to prevent case brokers from invading their headquarters. To reduce the chance of unlawful middlemen building an amicable rapport with officers, the unit decided to limit access into the building to just one entry point.

The one-million-dollar question is this: when a case broker wants to make a backdoor deal with the police, would the transaction really go down inside the compound? These secret deals, don't they usually took place in, err, secret places?

Optimists would see the pin-wearing and closed-door policies as nice symbolic gestures that profess a commitment to eradicating corruption.

Skeptics, however, would surely see this nothing more than a pretentious act that does nothing to improve the public's negative perception of one of the most corrupt institutions in the country. It's a gesture that means absolutely nothing if police don't walk the talk.

Instead of implementing such trivial policies, the National Police need to show the country that it is taking concrete measures to fight corruption within the institution.

For example, Tempo magazine once wrote about the high-ranking police generals with suspiciously fat bank accounts. Up until now, the force has yet to provide a transparent, conclusive explanation on Tempo's accusation. Resolving such a case is far more useful than pin-wearing or door-closing policies.

If there is a positive spin to be taken from these ineffectual campaigns, it is that the police are, at the very least, willing to admit that corruption is still a sickness within its body.

As one high-rank police puts it: "We need stricter supervision because we are not RoboCops or angels."