Source B is part of the coroners report on the death of Polly Nicholls. It like source C is a factual description.
Both sources agree that the killer knew what to cut. Source B says:
“there are no meaningless cuts” showing that the killer didn’t cut randomly, he knew were to cut for full effect. Source C agrees by saying :
“in the neck there was a long incision…cutting the windpipe completely in two”
This basically means that there was only one cut to the neck, showing that the killer knew were to cut on the victims neck to kill her.
However this is also a disagreement, source B says that the killer had some “anatomical skill and knowledge”. but source C does not mention anything about the killers anatomical skills, it only says how the victim was killed, and even though he new were to cut the neck, it doesn’t prove he new what to do, it could have been luck.
Source C does support some of the evidence in sources A and B. They all agree that the murders were extremely violent but there are some differences. Overall source C is best supported by source C because they are both factual descriptions and give more detail about the killer. Were as source A is brief and just gives the basic information about the murder not the killer.
How useful are sources D and E in helping you understand why the ripper was able to avoid capture?
One reason in source D that helped the ripper escape was that Elizabeth Long did not see the ripper from face on. This means in her evidence she keeps saying “ as far as I can tell” and “I think”. this questions the reliability of the witness statement. Another reason that helped the ripper escape is that in the description of the killer given, he is not described as an unusual person, for example the witness says he was wearing a deerstalker hat. This is very helpful in letting the ripper escape because at the time of the murder lots of the men were wearing deerstalker hats, so there was a smaller chance of catching him. Also Elizabeth Long saw the victim talking to a man before the murder, she had no proof the man seen was actually the murderer. Also the witness viewed the suspect in the dark so could not have got a proper look at him, plus the description given is racist and is therefore bias.
Source E is a newspaper article. It is useful because the source suggests that there were very few police about, this gives the ripper an easy escape and a greater chance of not being caught.
Also there were lots of escape routes down the alley, this means the ripper could have hid down many alleys, giving many possible escape routes.
If there had been more police around the ripper would have had less chance of escaping, even if he used the alleys because he would have had more chance of being seen.
Another reason that the ripper escaped is that Whitechapel was prone to violence. So if the victim had screamed it would have been ignored because it was common. This helped the ripper escape because no-body came to intervene or check why the victim was screaming.
However because the newspapers informant in the source is kept unknown it could mean the source is untruthful and made up to change the publics image of the police. It is useful because it shows just how critical the press were of the police.
Overall, whereas Source D is helpful because it shows what the killer could have looked like and describes a very common looking person, helping the ripper escape, it has too many problems with the time the source was reported and the fact that the suspect was viewed from behind.
Source E is more useful because it gives more convincing reasons and a lager range of reasons why the ripper escaped and put extra pressure on the police
Use Sources F and G, and your own knowledge, to explain how the police tried to catch Jack The Ripper.
After the first few murders the police started to try and catch jack the ripper.
The first method used was the Bobby on the Beat, this was a policeman patrolling on the streets. The “bobby” was meant to keep watch and was used to scare The ripper and to catch him, it was a good idea but because of the many alleys it was hard to observe every single one at the same time and still gave the ripper chances to escape. However there were too few policemen around to be efficient.
Another method the police started to use was detective methods, for example they started to follow suspicious characters. This method is still used today and is very effective but only if the correct people are selected. The ripper could have been being followed but not caught are he could have been considered to be “normal” by social standards, and this meant he wouldn’t have been followed. This is shown in source F in the printed leaflet given out, asking the public for details of anybody acting suspiciously.
The third method was raising public awareness, this was done by leaflets being printed, posters being put up around the neighbourhood and police doing public visits. It showed the public, and the ripper, the police were trying to capture him. It probably raised the public opinion of the police and could have worried the ripper. Source F is the leaflet published and was show about. However there are 80,000 houses in Whitechapel so not every body would have seen the poster. Things like this are used today, police do public visits to talk to witnesses and instead of posters there are programmes like crime watch asking the public for help and giving out appropriate information. Also after the fourth murder it still seemed that the police were unwilling or unable to give a description of the ripper.
However the police could have done a lot more. Source G is part of the letter from the home secretary to the mile end vigilance committee. It states that there will be no reward given for the discovery of criminals(jack the ripper). The home secretary says that experience showed the offering of a reward did more harm than good. This is understandable as people may try to take advantage of the reward and hand in the wrong person. But the promise of a reward would cause the public to be more vigilant and stop making it easy for the ripper. More whiteness’ may have come forward with information at the promise of a reward. Also because at this point there had only been two murders it was not unusual.
Another problem is that police had no forensic evidence. They did not take fingerprints or check for DNA. This however was not there fault, they did not have the technology and did not understand about the importance of fingerprints, photos etc.
However as the murders progressed so did the methods. On the last Ripper murder a photograph was taken of the victim’s body. This was the first step towards modern forensic methods.
The police did try to catch jack the ripper as source F shows but the methods they used were un affective and the methods that would have been good like rewards were, as source G shows, not used.
It was hard for the police because there was more pressure to catch the ripper and they didn’t have the technology or the detective methods we have nowadays, but there was more they could have done.
“The police were to blame for not capturing Jack The Ripper”
Use the sources and your own knowledge to explain whether you agree with this view.
Some people blame the police for not capturing Jack the Ripper, but they are not entirely to blame. There are a number reasons why Jack the Ripper was never caught. Police actions helped him escape but they aren’t the only reason.
There are a few good reasons why the police were blamed for not capturing Jack the Ripper. The first is the fact that the police mishandled or discarded evidence given to them. For example Elizabeth Long gave evidence along with two other witnesses about the murder of Annie Chapman, however her evidence was the only one used(source D).
Also ,as source E shows, the police were very lazy and weren’t really interested in the murders, where none of the policemen want to answer the “informants” question and just refer him to another policeman. Also they didn’t put enough policemen about Whitechapel, to stop/scare the Ripper. The police hoped that some accidental circumstance would cause the Ripper to make a mistake and would get caught, as Source H shows.
However it was hard without today’s methods, there was no way of collecting forensic evidence, and the police received very little training. It was understandably hard for the police to do there job, they had no way of catching the Ripper using science and the training they had received did not seem to be helping them.
They did what they had been trained to do, which was to follow suspicious characters, but this did not help them capture the ripper. But it did raise public morale and showed that, even though the police were not getting anywhere, they were at least trying. also they visited most of the lodging homes and spoke to over 2000 people, they were trying very hard.
There were other reasons than just the police that the ripper to escape. For example the narrow streets and alleys of Whitechapel made it easy for the ripper to escape, these had nothing to do with the police. The press did not help either, they confused the public and tried to make the police look bad. And also there was no reward given for the capture of the ripper, which meant there was little motive for people to try and help the police, leaving everything to be done by the police and making it hard for them.
Overall I think that the police were to blame to a certain extent. They did not seem interested in the murder and they didn’t handle the little evidence and help given very well, but this wasn’t entirely there fault as they had been trained this way the sources show that there was some confusion about the murders because none of the sources can show any possible links or reasons for the murders. And the police did try to find out more as the murders went on. They were not to blame for not being able to use forensics because they didn’t have the understanding that we have now about fingerprints, DNA and photography and how important it is in murder cases such as this.
By the end of the Ripper murders the police had stepped up there security and where trying harder, but if they had done it after the first few murders then maybe the ripper would have been caught. Basically the police were inexperienced, understaffed and in competent. Only one of the three is there fault