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The Police and Jack the ripper

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Introduction

Question 5 I agree with 'the police were to blame for not capturing Jack the Ripper' because the police carried out a lot of any many faults that slowed down there investigation and brought disruptions in them. Firstly, the police were looking for the wrong person, they considered the Ripper was a human butcher rather than an educated person with medical knowledge "both crimes are the work of a demented being, as the extraordinary violence used is the peculiar feature in each instance" this tells us that the media and possibly the police believed that the murderer was a mad man, but in other sources the murders of the Ripper seemed more like a operation made by a doctor, and educated person like a doctor wouldn't do such killings. However the serial killer was reported as a "skilful person" with a lot of medical knowledge who knew about each organ and were it was situated, source B; part of the Coroner's report of the death of Polly Nicholls, "the injuries have been made by someone who had considerable anatomical skill and knowledge...no unskilled person could have known where to find the organs, or to have recognized them when they were found. ...read more.

Middle

The police didn't use any rewards, which would have helped them get some information of the Ripper. The police also lacked a lot of training, they didn't use the methods they had properly to go through their investigation, like the bloodhounds, they should have had bloodhounds on the beat with the police officers. If they didn't have any CCTV cameras they could have visited places were murders were most likely to happen, they could stay at lodging houses and secretly follow suspicious people and search through peoples houses, but they didn't have the knowledge to do so as they were not properly trained. Not offering any rewards was a bad idea, in Whitechapel the police had a bad reputation "he was referred from one police office to another, but without making any impression" so the public didn't inform the police anything, if they were offered rewards they would probably do so. The police only had a very small area to investigate as seen in source I which is a map of the East End in 1888 showing the sites of the murders, having a small place for the police to investigate would be much easier, if they put more police on the beat at all times in a small area like this the Ripper would have been captured, it would also help if the police if they dressed up as normal citizens while on the beat. ...read more.

Conclusion

which is part of an article in a local newspaper after the murders of Polly Nicholls and Annie Chapman "the main thoroughfares of Whitechapel are connected by a network of narrow, dark and crooked lanes. Every one apparently containing some headquarters of infamy. The streets were also filled with smog, which, made it harder for police to the ripper. The sights and sounds are a apocalypse of evil". This helps us understand that it wasn't fully the polices fault, the lanes of Whitechapel made it hard for the police to capture the ripper, and nobody could be trusted as everyone in Whitechapel had done some sort of crime as they had a bad name for something, so basically everyone in Whitechapel was a suspect. The lack of training of the police was completely not the polices fault, it was down to the lack of government funding for the police and its refusal to increase taxes. The police did their very best with all the techniques they had available at that time, they did pretty well without all the technologies of today like CCTV cameras, DNA identification, finger printing or national, organized police force. A murderer who targets complete strangers with no motive at all is still very rare even by today's standards with all the technology. ...read more.

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