The police also attempted to catch the Ripper by using the theory that the last image that a person saw remained on their retina. This was a complete waste of time, because whatever they thought there was no way of them finding out whether the image remained on their retina or not, because they did not have the technology to do so.
The police also tried to catch Jack the Ripper by collecting and using the evidence they found at the crime scene They used to take pictures of the scene usually by drawing what they saw. This was not a very effective method, because things could have been missed out and detailing would not have been accurate.
Photography was also used, however it was a new invention and therefore there were a lot of disadvantages. To start off with photos could only be take in day light, they would only be black and white, it took a long time to set up, it was very expensive to use, the development of the photos would have taken a long time and there would have been no close ups. This was definitely not a very effective method because the final pictures turned out unclear and very grainy. We also now that only Mary Kelly’s crime scene was photographed inferring that it was a piece of equipment that was not used very often by the police because it was not very accurate. The police also handed out the letters that the Ripper had apparently sent to the public to see if anyone recognised the handwriting. This again was a waste of time, because most people were illiterate and therefore would not really have recognised anybodies handwriting.
The police began to get so desperate that they asked the Home Secretary for a reward to be awarded to anyone who knew who the murderer was. The Home Secretary turned it down, because ‘The practice of offering reward for the discovery of criminals was discontinued some years ago…’ he was ‘…satisfied that there is nothing in the circumstances of the present case to justify a departure from the rule.’ This statement is from source G, which is part of a letter from the Home Secretary to the Mile End Vigilance Committee. This shows that police were really struggling to capture Jack the Ripper.
The police also tried to catch the Ripper by interviewing large numbers of butchers that went to the Sipalfields meat market, which took place on weekends. The police thought that a butcher might have committed the murders, because every murder took place on a weekend. Source B tells us that ‘No unskilled person could have know where to find the organs, or to have recognised them when they were found.’ This shows that the murderer was probably a doctor of some sort or he may have even been a butcher. However source B then states that, ‘No mere slaughterer of animals could have carried out these operations.’ This infers that the murderer could not have been a butcher and therefore all the inquiries the police were doing were just a waste of time.
The police also tried to protect the prostitutes by assigning a certain area for them to stay in. Annie Chapmen, one of the victims, left that area, around St. Bottolph’s Church and was murdered. It shows that the police were trying to catch the Ripper, but if people did not co-operate then it was made hard for them to do their jobs.
In 1888 there were two different police forces, the Metropolitan Police Force and the City Police Force. This relationship between these two police forces is a reason why the Ripper was able to avoid capture. Both of these police forces were competing to solve the murders. A good example of this is the instructions given by Major Henry Smith the leader of the City Police Force to his men. He told them not to share any information they gathered with the Metropolitan Police Force. The leader of the Metropolitan Police Force Sir Charles Warren rubbed off a message supposedly left by the Ripper because he did not want the City Police Force reading it and he was afraid it would lead to anti-Semitic rioting. The competing by the two forces to solve the murders and the hiding of information, allowed the Ripper to avoid capture.
Jack the Ripper himself also played a major part in not being captured by the police. He was very clever because he committed the murders in a very small area controlled by two police forces. He would have easily been able to escape from the police, because if he knew the area well then he could use the interconnecting ally ways to get away from the crime scenes quickly. Source I, a map of the East End in the 1888 showing the sites of the murders, shows us that all of the murders took place in very close proximity to each other with small narrow roads or ally ways connecting everything together. The Ripper was also able to avoid captured by the police, because he left no clues to why he was murdering these women and also every murder was random, because there were no links, between any of the victims apart from the fact that they were all prostitutes. Source A agrees with this when it states that there was’…no adequate motive…’ it shows us that the Ripper was an opportunist. The police also had no evidence left by the Ripper apart from a bloody apron. This however was useless, because in 1888 they did not have the technology to test the DNA of the blood. If the murders had occurred now then the blood on the apron would have been tested immediately to find out its DNA. Considering that this was the only evidence the police had it was very clear that the murderer was very careful in what he did.
This is why the police decided to do door-to-door enquiries. The Ripper was also a very committed serial killer. This is shown in source A when it states that ‘…both crimes were the work of a demented being…’ He was clearly mad, but at the same time dedicated to what he was doing. The Ripper was also very clever and all the police could hope for is that he made a mistake in one of his murders. This is shown in source H when it states that ‘All the police can hope is that some accidental circumstance will lead to a trace which may be followed by a successful conclusion.’ It is clear from this that the police forces moral would have been low, because they knew nothing more than anybody else. We also know from source C that ‘The neck and chest were quite warm, as were also the legs, and the face was slightly warm.’ This infers that the Ripper would have known the Whitechapel area fairly well, because he would have had to get away from the bodies quickly for them to be still warm when they were examined by the authorities.
The media may also have been to blame for the police not capturing Jack the Ripper. The newspapers job was to inform the public, but it also needed to exaggerate stories and sensationalise them in order to sell papers. Source A is a great example of a newspaper sensationalising in order to sell papers. It shows us that ‘…the extraordinary violence used is the peculiar feature in each instance,’ and that they were both ‘…the poorest of the poor…’ This Newspaper has tried to make the murders of Martha Tabram and Polly Nicholls look like serial murders. We know this may not be true because Martha Tabram was never part of the official investigation and the paper has just sensationalised in order to sell more papers. The media also give the police bad reputations by writing bad comments about them. Source E shows us ‘…that the police force on the spot should be strengthened and some kind of order created on the streets by night.’ This shows you clearly that the papers were not giving the police any support at all, instead they were writing terrible comments about them in the papers and a lot of papers exaggerated to sell papers. Source H is another article that was not very helpful towards the police. It shows you that, ‘All the police can hope is that some accidental circumstances will lead to a trace which may be followed to a successful conclusion.’ This shows you that the newspapers were making it look like the police could not do their job properly without help from the Ripper himself. There was also speculation that the first letter supposedly sent by the Ripper, which was sent to Fleet Street was not actually sent by him, it was sent by a journalist. It was signed Jack the Ripper and this is how he got his name. A second letter again was sent to Fleet Street. The handwriting was very similar to the first, which lead a lot of people to believe that the same person wrote them both. The third letter, which was called the From Hell Letter, was sent to the Central News Agency. It contained a kidney, which was meant to be the other side of one, which he had taken from one of his victims. However it was later realised that the kidney was the wrong one and was not actually from one of his victims.
The problems with the witnesses also contributed to the reason the police were not able to capture Jack the Ripper. To start off with the descriptions the witnesses gave were very unreliable and confusing. Source D shows you a typical example of the uncertainty of the witness’s descriptions of the Ripper. Throughout the evidence in source D it is clear that Elizabeth Long was not sure of what she was saying. ‘…I think…’, ‘…I cannot be sure…’, ‘…as far as I could tell…’, ‘…he seemed…’, ‘…he looked…’, ‘…as well as I could make out…’ All of these quotes show just how unsure she was of what she was saying. This is classic of what evidence they did gather. Queen Victoria had a major influence on who the people of Whitechapel thought the Ripper was. She said that the Ripper was a foreigner, because no Englishman would do such a thing and if he did he was certainly not a gentlemen. This influenced a lot of the English public to become biased against the foreigners. Most people were already anti-Semitic and xenophobic and the speech by Queen Victoria would have just increased this general feeling. Some murders also occurred near Polish Jewish men’s club, which lead a lot of people to assume that the Ripper was a Jew. Alexander Pedachenho was a suspect that the police had arrested. A witness who identified him refused to give evidence in court, because he did not want to incriminate another Jew.
The Whitechapel area is also another reason for the police not capturing Jack the Ripper. It was a very poor rundown area with a lot of interconnecting ally ways. These ally ways would have made it very easy for the Ripper to escape from the crime scene. Source J is a photograph of the back yard of 29 Hanbury Street. Annie Chapman’s body was lying against the fence with her head on the step. This shows that the Ripper would have been able to use the ally way connecting to the back of the terrace houses to murder his victims and then escape out of them very quickly. The Whitechapel area also had a fog that descended upon it because of its close proximity to the River Thames. This would have allowed the Ripper to step in and out of shadows to keep out of sight. The streets were also not very well lit because only gaslights were used. Whitechapel also had a very high crime rate. Eighty-three murders a year on average took place and the five murders by Jack the Ripper seem like nothing compared to the eighty-three that took place every year. A good example of these murders not being very important is when a scream of ‘murder’ was heard by two people, however they ignored it because it was something that was common in that area.
Overall I feel that the police were not completely to blame for not capturing Jack the Ripper. There were many other contributing factors that also allowed him to avoid capture. The media did not make it any easier for the police in capturing Jack the Ripper and neither did the witnesses. The sheer poorness of the Whitechapel area also contributed to the police not capturing Jack the Ripper.
