'The police were to blame for not capturing Jack the Ripper.'

‘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 was to blame for not capturing Jack the Ripper but only to a certain extent. At the times of the Jack the Ripper murders, the police force was developing and as the Jack the Ripper case started to cause speculation, the police force started to develop rapidly. The Jack the Ripper case was clearly mishandled due to the methods the police force used. The police force at the time was very inefficient and traditional which led them to be blamed for not catching Jack the Ripper. There were many other factors that contributed to this. Jack the Ripper himself used various different methods to escape capture, the media played an important role, there were also problems with witnesses and the Whitechapel area also helped him to avoid capture. There were many mistakes that the police made during their investigation; however there were a lot of factors that they could not avoid. One thing that the police did do to try and capture Jack the Ripper was put more police on the beat. It did cut down crime but it did not help them capture Jack the Ripper. The use of technology and the slow production and development of new methods and technology was also another reason why Jack the Ripper was not caught.

As mentioned before, the police was not entirely to blame for not capturing Jack the Ripper. The police force had to work in bad conditions. Source E is a newspaper article which describes the streets of Whitechapel as "containing some headquarters of infamy" and "The sights and sounds are an apocalypse of evil" This gives a very negative image of the streets of Whitechapel and leads us to feel sympathetic towards the Police because they had to work in these conditions. The conditions would also affect a policeman's efficiency and make him less alert. The conditions can also explain why Jack could get away so easily. Because the Ripper wore a "dark coat", he may have been able to camouflage into the dark surroundings, described -"The main thoroughfares of Whitechapel are connected by a network of narrow, dark and crooked lanes”-. This is also shown in a map where the roads are very close together. This may have made it nearly impossible for the police to catch Jack the Ripper. The narrow winding streets and alleyways also made hard for the police to trace Jack and made Jack's escape much more efficient that it would be on a busy, congested main road. This difficulty was made even worse by the fact there was no tram system in Whitechapel so it would have been hard for the police to get around quickly and to swiftly visit places where Jack the Ripper may have been. The conditions of the streets were also very poor. The streets were heavily polluted due to all the crimes and because Whitechapel was a poor area pollution and disruption in the streets were very common. The street lights of the Whitechapel area were also very poor as there were not enough street lamps and this provided less light which also contributed in Jack the Ripper getting away so easily.

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Technology was also one of the factors that affected capturing of Jack the Ripper. Due to the slow development of technology, it was nearly impossible to catch Jack the Ripper. At the time of the murders, there was a lot of competition between police forces across London so information was not shared. This was probably provoked due to the lack of computers as well as the competition between the police forces. Due to information being shared between the forces, including vital information, an independent police force would not have been able to catch. Lack of technology also extended to detective work, which was still primitive at the time. Without any forensic evidence, there were no clues as to who the Ripper was and he was therefore impossible to catch. We can see that there is a lack of technology from this quote, where the journalist for the Times says that the only way that the police can only catch Jack was "red handed", and not actually to solve the case in a contemporary manner, "some accidental circumstance will lead to a trace…" This statement led to operations where police officers attempted to dress as prostitutes to catch Jack "red handed". These failed to work. This lack of resources and technology was mainly caused by the low wages of police officers and the lack of funding from the government.

Jack the Ripper was a savage killer and the police force of the time had never encountered a person with that sort of mind-frame before and had no experience in dealing with the type of investigation that they came across. Therefore they found it hard to find out who was able to commit such a crime.

The media also made things worse for the police to catch Jack the Ripper. . Evidence leaked out about the Jack the Ripper murders and was published in the newspapers. This is shown by the fact that some newspapers have information on the murders, which was released to the public; this spoilt the police investigation as any member of the public could commit a copycat murder and confuse the police by leading them to a fake Jack the Ripper. This leads us to the question whether all five murders were committed by the same person, or was each murder a copy of the previous. This publicising of material confused the police investigation and made it very hard to solve because a lot of the evidence obtained became contradictory.

However, the police could also be blamed entirely for not capturing Jack the Ripper. One of the main arguments behind this view is that the Police forces around London did not combine for a national investigation where evidence and ideas could be shared and the probability of catching Jack would increase. This lack of sharing was mainly due to the petty competition between Police forces. An example of this is when Sir Charles Warren told the city policeman guarding the writing on the wall ("The Jews are the men that will not be blamed for nothing.") that he should rub it out. If the police forces around London were united they would have had a higher chance of catching Jack the Ripper.

The Police can also be blamed for failing to catch Jack the Ripper as they insisted on using narrow lines of questioning. For example, they only looked at certain groups of people (butchers, doctors and slaughterers) and only people in the local area of Whitechapel were questioned, "the murders are supposed to be committed by someone residing in the immediate neighbourhood." This localising of questioning went against popular opinion that the Ripper looked foreign and might have come from a different area of London, or might have even been a foreign doctor (this idea was even suggested by Queen Victoria). This narrow line of enquiring may be the reason that the Ripper was not caught.

On many occasions the police failed to take into account vital witnesses. One of the most evident of which is from the coroner’s report of the death of Polly Nichols where he says, "No mere slaughterer of animals could have carried out these operations." Even though the coroner made this report, the police still continued to waste time in the questioning of slaughterers and less skilled people. Another example of this happening would be where Dr Fredrick implied that the murder of Elizabeth Stride had been committed for money, "There was no money on the body" and yet the police still thought that the Ripper must have committed the murder. Turning a blind eye to witnesses may be the main reason why they never captured Jack the Ripper.

Although the media played a partial role in provoking copycat murders, so did the police. This is evident by the fact that the newspaper could gain access to such information as how brutal the murders were, "…a demented being…extraordinary violence…" This means that the police must have released some of the information, which could provoke copycat murders and confuse clues. The police published information such as the letter from the Ripper containing the words, "Next time I shall cut of her left ear." By publishing these vital clues the police were effectively shooting themselves in the foot.

In conclusion I believe that it was not the fault of the police for not capturing Jack the Ripper. This is because of the harsh conditions the police had to work in, the lack of technology and funding, the fact that Jack was the first serial killer and journalists also ruined the investigation. But there is a fair amount of other evidence to suggest that the police were to blame for not capturing Jack. This includes the fact there was unnecessary rivalry between police forces around London, the narrow line of investigation that the police used, the misuse using eyewitnesses and the fact that the police published evidence that could provoke copycat killings.

Fatima Shaikh