Use sources F, G, and your own knowledge to explain how the police tried to catch Jack the Ripper.
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Introduction
4) Use sources F, G, and your own knowledge to explain how the police tried to catch Jack the Ripper. In the 1880s, the police were very different from the police of today. Their main propose was crime prevention and their methods their methods were very primitive Source F is a police leaflet, which was published after the murders of Elizabeth Stride and Kate Eddowes; it was written to aid the police in their investigation it was also written in a factual tone, it suggests that the police were appealing for any information regarding suspicious characters. Because of the timing of this leaflet shows the desperation faced by the police but for because of the many defects reasons the leaflet was not successful: The first being that they did not offer any description of the murderer at all, 'person to whom suspicion was attached'. ...read more.
Middle
The leaflet also suggests that the police had run out of all possible leads and were using this leaflet as a last attempt. To sum up source F shows us that that the police methods were very much reliant on witnesses and help from the public. Source G is part of a letter from the Home Secretary to the mile End Vigilance Committee dated 17th September, after the murder of Annie Chapman, and comments on the issue surrounding the reward. As it is from the home secretary, it may be slightly bias towards the not giving the reward; but still, inferring from it, it can be seen that the public was loosing faith in the police force as they had set up their own Vigilance Committee. The letter justifies why there was no reward given out, in fact it states, "Experience showed that such offers of rewards tended to produce more harm than good". ...read more.
Conclusion
hope they would bump into the killer in the act, so to improve this chance they increased their patrols greatly during the height of the murders, in some cases bodies were stumbled on while they were still warm. An other thing the police did in order to catch the killer was asking witnesses and carrying out doing door to door enquires. Because they did not have and forensics this was the main things, they relied upon this a lot In conclusion, the police used many techniques in order to catch the killer they carried out: door-to-door inquiries, they put out notices to the public, and they had police officers under cover and they increased there police presence in the white Chapple area very greatly, despite all of these attempts the public still lost faith in the police force. This was reflected in the forming of the mile end vigilant committee. ...read more.
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