after she has calmed the fright of the child, who has grown at ease with her. After the juvenile has been questioned, the investigator summons his family to her office if he is released; otherwise she promises him that she will visit him in prison if he is taken there. After that the woman social investigator carries out her researches and her inquiry — and it is a social inquiry, not a police investigation. The difference between them lies in the nature of this inquiry: the investigation the police conduct aims at seizing the accused in order to preserve the social order disturbed by the occurrence of the crime, whereas the social inquiry may end in uncovering the criminal and in arriving at a knowledge of the human being who must be reformed — that is, whose confidence in his dignity and whose feeling of his own humanity must be restored to him. And this is a special work which only a human being can render to his fellow human being.
If the social inquiry sometimes leads to the sentence which the courts pronounce, it must always lead to the reform of the person sentenced and the straightening of his crookedness.
Thanks to the mastery and devotion in work shown by our most outstanding woman social specialist, Miss Georgette Abu Samra — who will be among those present at the current study session — the Union for the Protection of Juveniles was able in 1952 to carry out 461 inquiries for 461 delinquents.
What is the attitude the investigator must take when he wishes to help those persons who are the subject of his inquiry?
He must respect people — there are questions that may not be put, and questions that may be put only with a certain caution, and he must refrain from embarrassing questions — if he knows how to share with those he questions their cares, their difficulties, and their pains. He must not believe that he knows everything in advance, but must remain always alert, noticing every sign, seeing every phenomenon, and hearing every whisper connected with the subject of the inquiry he is conducting. He must cut down his questions as far as he can, for the best statements are those given without prompting or interrogation. He must be patient, for among the qualities of the true social investigator are patience, caution, and watchfulness. He must not content himself with approximate statements when it is in his power to obtain precise ones — an easy matter once the investigator arms himself with patience and long forbearance. He must care most of all for the quality of the statements he obtains, not their quantity. And when he obtains statements that agree in their substance, he must make certain that they do not agree in their source. Among the qualities of the true social investigator are orderliness in work and care in the classification of his records. He must be acquainted with the accepted technical methods and use them, without believing that they suffice and succeed in all cases; for however powerful they may be, they can never stand in the stead of soundness of mind and intelligence, nor take the place of the psychological and moral qualities with which the social investigator must be adorned.