Duty to Know: Police Educational Responsibility

Sor Juana's relentless pursuit of knowledge—her conviction that understanding was a moral imperative—speaks directly to police professionalism. She would likely argue that officers who police communities without deeply knowing their history, culture, values, and experiences are acting irresponsibly and unethically. Yet most police training treats community knowledge as optional or peripheral. A framework grounded in Sor Juana's epistemic commitments would establish a duty to know as fundamental to police professionalism. This means ongoing education in the history of the communities officers serve: immigration histories, economic policies that shaped neighborhoods, cultural traditions, family structures, spiritual beliefs, artistic expressions. It means officers reading literature and history by community members, learning local languages, understanding how past policing has affected trust. This is not soft skill training but core professional competency. Officers who know their communities deeply—their strengths, challenges, values, and sources of pride—can police more effectively and more justly. They make fewer mistakes born from cultural misunderstanding, they build trust more readily, they recognize community assets rather than only seeing problems. Knowledge of community becomes a measure of police professionalism equivalent to knowledge of law.