Kishen Naik 11R
Question 1 Jack the ripper
Describe law and order in London in the late nineteenth century.
The idea of a police force had developed in the nineteenth century. There were two police forces to start of with the bow street runners and the Thames River police. But in 1829 the metropolitan police was born as Sir Robert peel introduced it. This is how the police force had been progressing through time. Before 1829 the streets were patrolled by watchmen and parish constables who kept an eye out for trouble and prevented disturbances and robberies and did not try and solve crime they just tried to prevent it from happening. The metropolitan police also took on this role and in addition they were used to tackle big riots and major disturbances this did sometimes lead to the deaths of demonstrators.
The police forces had now evolved by being given uniforms to wear also like the “bobbies” (nickname given to the police) they were given truncheons which were often carried by watchmen. Constables could be issued with cutlasses and firearms were not allowed until the 1840’s the inspectors in the metropolitan police started carrying revolvers. The new police force was much better organised it was the metropolitan police force and this was the new police force in London it was to tackle and solve crime rather then before with the bow street runners and the Thames river police force. Problems with the police force was that solving crime was on a whole new criteria for them they had never come across it before so they didn’t know how to solve crime and with solving crime there were fingerprints discovered so the evolution of the first forensic teams but the metropolitan police were new to the whole idea of solving crime so that was a disadvantage they didn’t know how to deal with issues like when clues were left behind they didn’t know what to do they “tampered” with the scene of the crime this can relate to one of jacks victims at the scene of the crime the police constable had moved a piece of evidence things like that showed as a disadvantage and how they were new to the whole idea of “solving” crime. The metropolitan police had evolved as I wrote above through the idea of forensic teams for example also with better trial and improvement when things didn’t work they tried a new method until it worked slowly the force was becoming more sophisticated.
