Why were the police unable to catch Jack the Ripper?
Emily Smith
Why were the police unable to catch Jack the Ripper?
Even today it takes quite some time to catch a murderer on the run, but in the case of Jack the Ripper, there were many aspects police today would not come across. Jack the Ripper was not your average killer, if there is one, he leaves no evidence or clues at all, and his killings are far worse than any we would come across today. Police and vigilantes filled the streets day and night and angry mobs attacked the 'likely suspects'.
There were many things that added to the fact that the ripper wasn't caught. It didn't help that many people of the town were coming forward to the police and giving information about just general people acting strangely, these allegations were indeed false and the people had been released.
The ripper was also very clever, he had advantages as to the locations he did the crimes in and also how quickly he worked. All of the murders except the last one took place in the dark alleys at night, which was a sensible decision. He obviously worked very quickly it took him roughly five minutes to do each murder. This is shown by the fact that Police Constables were patrolling Whitechapel at regular intervals and there was always someone on the look out, but no-one saw anything. All of the murders took place at weekends, this suggests that the ripper only went into Whitechapel to perform the murders. Also as Whitechapel was such a close community if the ripper was local, someone must have recognized him.
The ripper had no obvious motive for each killing, as far as its known he did not know the victims, it appeared that he just killed at random, which would suggest that he was crazy or psychopathic, or that he was evil and simply killed for pleasure.
The police had only been formed in 1819/20 and so had a very limited knowledge of serial killers, and also scientific knowledge. Police were generally there to keep order, not to do detective work. There had probably been other serial killers around, but the police were blind to who they were and what was happening. When the Whitechapel murders started, the police had no idea that they were dealing with a ruthless serial killer! This is the same for the Home Secretary, who was so unaware how serious the murders were that he decided there was no need ...
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The police had only been formed in 1819/20 and so had a very limited knowledge of serial killers, and also scientific knowledge. Police were generally there to keep order, not to do detective work. There had probably been other serial killers around, but the police were blind to who they were and what was happening. When the Whitechapel murders started, the police had no idea that they were dealing with a ruthless serial killer! This is the same for the Home Secretary, who was so unaware how serious the murders were that he decided there was no need for a reward to be given out. The police had very limited knowledge and this could be the main reason that the ripper has not been caught. A turning point was the use of finger printing, which was introduced in the 1900's. The police were using a very standard method of detective work. The few methods that they had were not very successful. One was to take photographs of the victim's retina in hope that the murderer's face may still be in their memories. The only other method was foot printing, but as the murders took place in dark streets there were no clues at all. There was no forensic science around, any DNA testing and no psychological methods. The detectives and police didn't even know how to go about the murders because they didn't even know what a serial killer was and so they didn't know it was the same person repeating crimes again and again. At that time they had just started a scent trail, giving dogs what could be the scent of the killer, but this proved unsuccessful. In the Catherine Eddowes case, the chalk writing on the wall might have proved important in discovering who the killer was. The handwriting could have been compared with the letter or the postcard and this could have then been investigated further. It also didn't help that the police were unwilling to give any description of the ripper, which could've helped matters, because people would know who not to trust and who to look out for. All levels of police were very poorly prepared for an event such as this, and obviously had no idea about how to handle such a situation.
The relationship between the people and the police was not very good, because of the police favouring the richer class of people. This was especially true in Whitechapel. This was because the police were mainly protecting the middle and upper classes who wanted the drugs, drunks, beggars and prostitutes removed. This made an initial bearing on the investigations, when the police were making inquiries about the streets and the people.
The police had many witnesses, but they ignored most of the information and selected certain descriptions to follow up, which was a big mistake. They spent all of their time looking for a man who looked like a foreigner. People had described him in many different ways, things they should have taken into consideration were details like: height, which many people had included, whether he had a moustache or beard and average age. Details like this would have been much more help to the police than whether he is a foreigner. It also didn't help that people were randomly accusing other people just because they were foreign looking. This showed that the police and press were eager to believe that an "outsider" had committed these murders. Whitechapel was populated with foreigners, Jews, and vagrant, these were the obvious groups to target.
I also think that the interference of the vigilance committee, which clashed with the police's investigations could have added to why the ripper escaped capture.
After the murder of Polly Nicholls, a character called the "Leather Apron" appeared in many stories; this character had a reputation of threatening prostitutes for money. This story was another case followed by the police, another mistake. The Star, newspaper, described "Leather Apron" saying he was a Jewish slipper maker. They described all his features and soon after "Leather Apron" went into hiding. After the murder of Annie Chapman, there was an investigation and Inspector Joseph Chandler decided that the same murderer as before had carried out this murder. "Leather Apron" found out to be John Pizer, was arrested three days later. John Pizer had had previous convictions for stabbing, but he was found to have alibis for both of the murders and so was released. This is another case when a great deal of time was wasted.
The press played a big part in the reason Jack the Ripper wasn't caught, they made up rumours and wasted valuable police time. When Elizabeth Long stated that she saw Annie Chapman talking to a man who "looked ...like a foreigner" and previous witnesses had described a Jew, the newspapers caught onto the fact that the murdered might be a Jew, if not a Jew then a foreigner and there was talk that he had medical knowledge and that he worked in either an abattoir or a slaughter house. As a result of this many people who worked in such places were arrested but subsequently released 76 butchers and slaughters were questioned on the 30th September, even thought the Coroner dismissed them as suspects on the death of Annie Chapman. This also led the police to wasting time looking for a medical foreigner, who worked in either a slaughterhouse or an abattoir. There was an anti-Semitism view in the town, which made this even worse for the police. This was because the people were accusing many Jews, and the police were not sure if this was simply because they were Jews or if they really were connected to the case.
The fact that the Home Secretary refused to give a reward probably hindered any response from the public. There was nothing for the people to work for, apart from peace of mind. If someone worked and worked pulling together clues they would be doing it all for no reward for such hard work and effort.
In conclusion all of these points are important in trying to find out why the ripper wasn't caught. I think that the main problem was the police, they were very new to the business and used a very standard method of policing and detective work. This was very weakening because today the forensic science, DNA testing, fingerprinting etc. are the main key to discovering a criminals identity. Many other aspects added to the ripper escaping capture, but I feel that the limitations of the police were the main problem.
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