Q.4. Use sources F and G, and your own knowledge, to explain how the police tried to catch Jack The Ripper. [12]
The police tried a lot of ways to catch Jack The Ripper, but were very unlucky and unsuccessful. This was mainly due to the lack of resources and techniques available to the police. These days the resources and techniques have been becoming better then more than 100 years ago.
Source F is a police leaflet, encouraging people to step forward if they had any suspicions about anyone being the person behind the murders of the women that had shocked London. However, the leaflet was released after several murders, so it was a bit late to publish it then. It also tried to encourage people to keep a lookout and be watch out for themselves. They wanted people to “communicate at once with the nearest Police Station…should they know of any person to whom suspicion is attached”. This method was not very successful as they thought it would be. Source G is part of a letter, which is the reply from the Home Secretary to the Mile End Vigilance Committee. Prior to this the Mile End Vigilance Committee, who were a neighbourhood watch group led by George Lusk were asking the government to offer a reward so that people would be further encouraged to step forward with any evidence they might have had. The Home Secretary refused this offer based on that “the practice of offering a reward for the discovery of criminals, was discontinued some years ago because experience showed that such offers of reward tended to produce more harm than good”. This meant that unwanted attention would be received due to the attraction of the reward and the government would receive a lot of false information which would result in a complete waste of time. The police tried many other tactics to catch Jack The Ripper than the ones stated in both sources. They held many interviews and inquests into the death of the women; however these produced useless and unclear evidence. Most, including Queen Victoria believed the serial killer was a foreigner, so the police frequently spent time at the docks, expecting the killer to pass by on a ship. This however gave the Ripper all the time he needed to commit murders on the streets of London. Other techniques, which were just as bad mainly involved handing out leaflets, increasing the amount of policemen and photographing the eyes of the victim. The leaflets didn’t attract as much attention as they hoped and they received a poor quality of evidence from the people. Although increasing the policemen was a good idea, the Ripper still was able to avoid capture. This was mainly because the tactic was used at a very late time in the sequence of the murders. The police believed that taking a picture of the victim’s eyes would show a reflection of the killer; because that was the last thing they would have seen. This was of course completely untrue and proved to be one of their most useless tactics.
Due to lack of resources in the field of Science, the police’s techniques proved unsuccessful; however they did try their hardest in a lot of ways of trying to catch Jack The Ripper. None however, provided any useful evidence or a single lead to who the murderer might have been.
Q.5. “The police were to blame for capturing Jack The Ripper”.
Use the sources and your own knowledge to explain whether you agree with this view. [14]
Blaming the police entirely for not capturing Jack The Ripper is a statement that can be easily justified, however there are also a lot of arguments against this statement. There are a lot of reasons which support blaming the police for not catching Jack The Ripper. One of the police techniques was sending out leaflets asking the public to go to the nearest police station if they had any evidence that would be useful to the police. Source F shows a leaflet that the police published to hopefully receive some evidence, and people were “requested to communicate at once with nearest police station”. However, the police left this until very late, around 4 or 5 murders had happened when the leaflets were sent out. The police removed all evidence, which could have been useful such as the writing on the wall. They also cleaned up murder scenes immediately which removed all possibility of getting any useful evidence the killer left behind. Cleaning up the murder scenes also involved washing away the blood, which meant that even more evidence was removed. This was a very silly mistake the police made, because after examinations of the crime scene, some evidence may have been found that could have given them the link to who the murderer was. Since the murders took place in both Whitechapel and London, there was strong competition between the two police
forces (Metropolitan Police & City Of London Police). If they had worked together to solve this mystery, they may have actually been able to catch the Ripper. However, both police forces were more concerned about being the ones to catch him themselves, so they in the end could take all the credit. Although this can be seen as a wise choice, the government’s decision to not offer a reward could have been a bad decision to make. Although preventing a lot of people with false information seeking money from coming to the police, they could have also prevented people with useful evidence from coming, who may have been able to help the police solve the mystery. Source G shows the return letter from the Home Secretary to the Mile End Vigilance Committee, a neighbourhood watch group headed by George Lusk who were trying to persuade the government to offer a reward. The Home Secretary’s response simply stated that “experience showed that such offers of reward tended to produce more harm than good”. The police’s tactics were very weak in the sense that what they did was mostly completely useless. They believed in silly things such as photographing the victim’s eyes would show a reflection of the killer (they last person they saw). Obviously this was a stupid tactic and the police wasted a lot of time doing things like that. Queen Victoria even criticised the police force herself. She said “our detectives must be improved. They are not what they should be”. Most people also thought that there were not enough policemen “on the beat” at the beginning. Source E shows part of an article published in a local newspaper, which describes an informant who “demanded that the police force be strengthened” and warned them that more murders would ensue if they didn’t. He even suggested the creation of a curfew, so they could search the streets when they were clearer, but the police refused to even consider his idea. However, unexpectedly to them, more murders happened. This was another major mistake made by the police. A main reason why the police were to blame is that they followed every single piece of evidence they received no matter how vague or stupid, even when they knew it was completely useless. The police were therefore diverted to the docks to search for a foreigner, which gave the Ripper all the time he needed to commit his murders on the streets of London. Although the Police made several mistakes and many unwise decisions, there are a significant number of reasons of why the police were not to blame. In 1888, there was no forensic equipment or technology. They did not have fingerprinting and were unable to identify where the blood came from, which they found at the crime scene. The police and others were frequently sent organs from Jack The Ripper. George Lusk was even sent Catherine Eddowes’ kidney, but due to lack of forensics, they could not tell if it was the actual victim’s organ that had been sent. The organs that were sent, were what was nicknamed “trophy taking”, which meant that the Ripper would take organs to celebrate his victory in committing a murder. Source B describes how the murderer had to be someone with “considerable anatomical skill and knowledge”, because there were no “meaningless cut” and he knew exactly “where to find the organs”. The police were dealing with a knowledgeable man in the field of anatomy, and he made sure the minimum of clues were left behind for them. The witnesses that the police interviewed were weak and unsure of what was really going on. Most witnesses would have been friends of the prostitutes who were murdered and they were more than likely to be drunk when the police interviewed them. Source D shows a woman named Elizabeth Long’s evidence into the inquest of the death of Annie Chapman. Having described the man Annie was seen with before she was killed, she used phrases like “I cannot be sure”, “as far as I could tell” and “as well as I could make out”. This proves she really didn’t know what she was talking about. She would have been likely to be drunk and with this quality of evidence the police wouldn’t have really known what to do with it. However, they were forced to follow all leads, and since most described him as a foreigner, they were diverted to the docks to search for one. The area of Whitechapel in 1888, was crowded and had very narrow streets. In other words, Whitechapel in that time was the ideal place for the Ripper to commit all his murders and be able to run away and escape from the police. Source E describes the “main thoroughfares of Whitechapel (being) connected by a network of narrow, dark and crooked lanes”. It is trying to explain how easy it was for the Ripper to commit a murder in some form of dark alleyway and then run away before anyone would even notice. Source I shows a map of the East End and most cities and pubs are very close to each other, proving that the place was so crowded, it was easy for the Ripper to blend in whenever he wanted to. The murders could be very easily carried out. The large amount of alleyways made it very simple for the Ripper to do what he wanted to. Source J shows the body of Annie Chapman and the area in which this murder was committed proves what an easy thing it was for the Ripper to commit his murders. Mary Jane Kelly, was even murdered in her own home and this was only discovered the following morning. It was also very easy to commit these murders for the Ripper, because he targeted prostitutes. Source A, an article in the East End Observer, describes how “the victims have been the poorest of the poor”, which are prostitutes. They led irregular lives and no – one cared much about them, so no – one would know where they were, which does explain the poor quality of evidence and this was not the police’s fault. The Ripper was an extremely intelligent serial killer and left very little evidence for the police to work with. He made sure no clear motive for the murders could be established. Source C is a doctor’s report on the body of Elizabeth Stride. He states that “there was no money on the body”. The Ripper left no money, so once the idea of money had been eliminated; the police had no other ideas for what the motive could be. Source H is an article published in The Times after the murder of Mary Kelly. It states that “not a trace is left of the murderer”, which was true, because at the end there was no real evidence left. The article goes on to say about that “all the police can hope is that some accidental circumstance will lead to a trace which may be followed to a successful conclusion”. This was saying that all the police could hope for is that by luck the murderer is revealed. The police did get a lot of bad press at the time of the Ripper murders. The public didn’t believe in their ability and most people were very suspicious of the police; they didn’t want to support them or even be seen supporting them. The media used the events of the Ripper murders to sell stories and part of this was developing negative views on the police force. All the bad press must have brought down the police’s self esteem down to a very small amount. Although there are a sufficient number of valid reasons not to blame the police for the murders, I believe they are to blame, because of their disorganisation, lack of good tactics and timing. However, lack of forensics, poor quality of evidence and the Ripper being an extremely intelligent serial killer were three major factors that definitely prevented them from catching the Ripper and none of these three factors were in any way their fault.