Source D tells us a lot about why the Ripper was able to avoid capture. Let me first go into detail about what the source actually tells us. The source is a description by Elizabeth Long of a man seen talking with Annie Chapman just before she was murdered. It tells us that the man looked like a foreigner and over 40 years old. It says he was wearing a deerstalker hat and he was a little taller than the deceased (Annie).
This description was very vague but the police still used it because they were pressured into getting a result and had nothing else to rely on. It was one of the only leads they had. There were hundreds of foreigners over 40 in Whitechapel at the time so this description is pretty useless. The description of his height ‘a little taller than the deceased’ is far too vague. Source D suggests the murders were committed by the ‘stereotypical criminal’, a tall, dark, foreigner.
This description is probably very unreliable because Elizabeth Long was a working girl and was probably drunk when she saw them talking. This would probably explain why ‘I think’ and ‘as far as I could tell’ followed most of the sentences. Her uncertain and vague statement could lead the police on to a wild goose chase, looking for a middle-aged foreigner with a deerstalker hat and no one else.
Vague statements from eyewitnesses led to the Ripper getting away, as they were unreliable and often led to false convictions, letting the real Ripper slip away. The man seen talking with Annie before her death was not necessarily the murderer, maybe just an innocent customer. This would mean the police were looking for the wrong person entirely, allowing the murderer to get away.
Source E is an article from a local newspaper, describing how ineffective the police force were at the time. It tells us that the informant, probably a member of the public, tells the police to strengthen their on the spot police force or there would be more murders. This tells us that the number of policemen actually ‘on the beat’ was relatively small, and it was. There were only 1,383 officers available for beat duty at any one time in the whole of London. A small number of police on the street led to the Ripper getting away because it would be very unlikely for a policeman to catch him in the act. Also he would have been able to avoid capture as the police weren’t ‘creating order on the streets by night’ so he could just slip into the crowd of beggars and homeless people. Also this tells us that the police ignored advice and may have ignored evidence as well, letting the Ripper get away.
This source also contains a brief description of Whitechapel. ‘A network of narrow, dark and crooked lanes’. These dark and crooked lanes would have been a perfect getaway route for the Ripper and he could have easily lost the police in the tangle of alleyways. He probably would have had a greater knowledge of the area than the police would at the time so he was guaranteed an easy getaway. This is how he was able to avoid capture.
The source also says that the informant was led from one police office to another, without making any impression. This shows that there was a lack of co-operation between the different police offices of London and they weren’t very organised.
Because the police ignored this information it shows that they didn’t follow up every single lead.
Source E is not completely reliable as it was printed in a local newspaper. It could have been written by someone who disliked the police, as the police weren’t exactly very popular at the time. It doesn’t really tell you how he avoids capture just about how bad the police were and a description of Whitechapel.
Sources D and E are quite useful but I think E is more useful because it gives a description of the area and the police, two vital factors in how the Ripper got away.
4- Use sources F and G to explain how the police tried to catch Jack the Ripper
Source F is a police leaflet handed out to 80,000 houses after the murder of Elizabeth Stride and Kate Eddowes. It tells the occupier to communicate with the nearest police station if you know of a suspicious person. This source tells us that one of the methods used to try to catch the Ripper was to publish leaflets asking the public to report on anyone they suspect. This could have helped the police because they could receive lots of information on who the Ripper was and where he could be hiding. On the other hand, this method might not have been such a good idea. The mass leaflet handout could cause the police to be swamped by thousand of replies, reporting anything in the slightest bit suspicious. This would have ended up wasting lots of police time but may have helped in the end.
Source G is part of a letter from the Home Secretary to the Mile End Vigilance Committee. He explains he doesn’t want a reward given for the capture of the Ripper as it would do more harm than good. This source tells us that the police refuse to give rewards for vital information leading to the Ripper’s capture. You can understand the Home Secretary’s point, that rewards would do more harm than good, because people would plant false evidence etc just to get a reward. Leaflets asking for information would have helped the police try to catch the Ripper but the lack of a reward might have put people off.
After the murder of Polly Nicholls, one of the police techniques for trying to catch the Ripper was house to house enquiries. This meant going round to all the houses in the local area and asking the residents if they had seen anything unusual or suspicious. This would have been quite effective, as someone in the local area must have seen something unusual. On the other hand, the police did not make notes on all inquests and interviews for later comparison so this method may not have worked very well. The police at the time did not carry a pencil and paper and could not make a note of what the residents had to say. By the time an officer had been to twenty or thirty houses he would not be able to remember what most of them had said, so this method was not very reliable.
After the murder of Annie Chapman, a police surgeon made a detailed report on the state and position of the body and the murder weapon. This wouldn’t have really helped the police to find the Ripper but might have given them an insight into his motive. The police also had a study of all the evidence found nearby. This included a comb, a piece of cloth, a leather apron and a nail box. This would have helped the police try to catch the Ripper because they would know that the murderer might have worn a leather apron. On the other hand as no forensic techniques had been developed the information they could get from the evidence was fairly limited. The police also took a number of eyewitness reports from people who had been in the vicinity at the rough time of the murder. As we know from looking at other sources, eyewitnesses were not always accurate and tended to give vague statement that were not very useful to the police.
After the double murder of Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes on the 30th September, the police increased their efforts to catch the Ripper. They did this by increasing their police patrols, sending a handbill to 80,000 houses and even dressing up policemen as prostitutes in an attempt to lure the killer. The police used bloodhounds to try and follow the scent of the killer and it partially worked. The police didn’t manage to track him down but the bloodhounds were enough to deter any further murders. The police could no longer afford to feed the dogs and so had to stop using them after only a week. With no dogs to deter the killer, the murders continued.
To try to catch the Ripper, the police questioned 76 slaughterers and butchers, as the murders suggested that the killer was within this profession. This was a waste of police time as slaughterers and butchers had already been dismissed as suspects by the coroner at the inquest into the death of Annie Chapman.
The murders on the 30th September also led to the flooding of the area by uniformed and plain clothed policemen. More policemen didn’t stop the Ripper as there was so much prostitution going on and the police couldn’t tell the difference between customers and killers.
After the final murder of Mary Kelly, the police were doing all that they could to catch the Ripper but it wasn’t enough. The Ripper disappeared without trace and the police never got their man.
5- ‘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.
The police were to blame for not capturing Jack the Ripper because they did not make use of all the available evidence. One example of this was when the police did not follow up evidence given by three eyewitnesses. This was because they suggested that the murder of Annie Chapman was around 5:30 but Dr Phillips, a police surgeon, thought it was more like 4:30. The police decided to accept the evidence of Dr Phillips and so dismissed the evidence of John Richardson, Albert Cadosch and Elizabeth Long. Just because a police surgeon disagreed about the time of death, the police did not follow up potentially important evidence from the eyewitnesses. This dismissal of evidence shows that the police were to blame because if they ignored clues then they would never catch the Ripper. Another example of how the police were to blame was when they rubbed writing off a wall after the murder of Eddowes. This was potential evidence and could have helped the investigation as it could have given clues of the Ripper’s identity. The police did not know whether the Ripper was responsible for this graffiti but nevertheless they removed it before it had been examined properly. This meant that the police never found out if the Ripper was responsible and therefore the writing gave them no clues.
On the other hand the police did try to make use of all the evidence they could get their hands on. They had many methods to gather evidence and information on the murders. Some of these were effective but some were just a waste of time. The police knew that they had to preserve the crime scene as much as possible and gather evidence in the form of objects found in the vicinity. They did this after most of the latter murders once they had realised the seriousness of the situation. This method, however, was of little use due to limited forensic techniques at the time. In 1888, there was no knowledge about blood groups, DNA or fingerprints. This meant that no item found could be linked to any suspect directly. The police made door to door inquiries and sent out leaflets to 80,000 houses in the local area, in an attempt to find out who the Ripper was. The police did try to make use of all evidence, but sometimes it was difficult. Dr Phillips and Dr Bond disagreed over the time of Mary Kelly’s death. The conflicting opinions made it hard for the police to make use of eyewitnesses effectively as they didn’t know who to believe.
The police were to blame for not catching the Ripper because they were disorganised. There was a lack of co-operation between the London Metropolitan police force and other police forces like City of London police. An example of this is shown in source E of the Jack the Ripper Booklet. It tells us that a member of the public was trying to give the police some advice and he was ‘referred from one police office to another, but without making any impression’. This shows us that the police were not very organised and didn’t take the publics advice seriously. After the murders of Nicholls and Chapman, there was a threat that the murders would not be investigated together as they were committed in different districts. Although this didn’t happen, this shows a lack of collaboration between the forces could have hindered the investigations further.
On the other hand, it wasn’t all the polices fault they were disorganised and unprepared. The police were taken by surprise at the nature of the murders. Jack the Ripper was the first serial killer and the police were not aware of this at the start of the investigation, and they didn’t even know what a serial killer was. They were dealing with a new type of criminal and were not prepared for the task of catching him.
The police were to blame for not capturing the Ripper because they wasted resources and time. An example of how the police wasted time and resources was how they didn’t make a record of each and every field interview for later comparison. This meant that it was quite possible that the Ripper was interviewed at some point but had a good enough story to escape further interrogation. Because the police didn’t record interviews on paper, they were unable to cross-reference and check out peoples’ alibis. This meant that if they later found conflicting evidence with what the person had said then they would only have their memories to call on. Door to door inquiries and interviews were a good idea as a form of information gathering but it was a waste of time, as the interviews were not recorded. Another way that the police wasted time and resources was how they interviewed 76 butchers and slaughterers, despite the fact they had been ruled out as possible suspects by the coroner at the inquest into the death of Annie Chapman. This shows that the police were disorganised and information wasn’t being passed around properly, or that the police were so desperate to catch the Ripper that they would do anything to try to get a lead, even if it was unlikely to help them. The police also wasted time by distributing a handbill to 80,000 houses in the local area, asking for information on anything suspicious. This was a waste of time for two reasons. Firstly, the police already thought that the Ripper was not local, due to the fact that the murders took place at weekends, so it was pointless asking local people. Secondly, because this would have caused the police to be overwhelmed by replies from local people, reporting anything in the smallest bit suspicious. This would have wasted lots of police time, having to deal with thousands of replies, most of them having no useful information in.
However, the police weren’t totally to blame for wasting so much time. The press wasted a lot of police time, preventing them from doing more important work. Newspapers made the murders public and local people inundated the police with information about anyone whose behaviour was the slightest bit suspicious. After the murders of Nicholls and Chapman there were hundreds of letters to newspapers claiming to be from the murderer. This made work for the police harder because if there was a genuine letter from the Ripper then the police would be unable to distinguish it from the fake letters. The Home Secretary was asked to provide a reward to help catch the Ripper after only a couple of murders but he refused, as he didn’t know the seriousness of the situation. This wasn’t the fault of the police, but it could have saved a lot of time and maybe even prevented further murders.
The police were to blame for not catching the Ripper because of bad public relations and a poor reputation at the time. Many people did not regard the police as friendly because they gained a reputation for being violent and heavy handed. Because of this the police had to go into poorer areas with cutlasses to protect themselves, as attacks on policemen were common. Some of this bad reputation was caused by charges by the police, often killing demonstrators and rioters. This bad reputation caused a general belief that the police were favouring the middle and upper classes. This made the work of police in poor areas quite difficult because the public were reluctant to co-operate. Also, when the public did come forwards to talk to the police they were often ignored like the informant in source E. This made people less likely to speak to the police.
The police wasted time, were disorganised and didn’t make use of all the available evidence. However, when they realised how serious the situation was they tried much harder to apprehend the killer. You can’t really blame the police totally for not catching him, as he was the first serial killer the London police had ever come across. They had no experience with this type of criminal, and the lack of modern techniques made it very difficult for them. In summary, the police were partially to blame for not catching the Ripper.
