Why were the police unable to catch jack the ripper?

        In Victorian ages police had little technology they do nowadays which would have immensely helped to the capture of Jack the Ripper.  They had no forensics to compare fingerprints, no CCTV cameras nor did they know about DNA or genes. This meant that even if police did have suspects or leads they could never follow them as the suspect actually had to be caught committing the crime otherwise, was innocent. Police had little equipment usually only armed with a whistle and a baton. They had no communications with each other and had to run when they believed it was necessary for them to attend in comparison to today were police have radios and cars. This is a contributing factor to why the police were unable to catch Jack the Ripper as no one saw him commit the crime and police were unable to attend quickly to the scene of the crime. 

        Whitechapel was used to having strangers in the town as it was situated near a port. This meant that foreigners entered and left London often. Many of these travellers used prostitutes and as no on knew them it was hard for the police to sum up evidence against them. Many of these foreigners were from the navy or working in boats. If the travellers were Jack the ripper they could easily leave the country, uncaught without any notice been taking any of them. This made it extremely difficult for the police to interview possible Jack’s or to find the person, who fitted descriptions.

        The newspapers received many letters claiming to be from Jack the ripper. Many of these letters could have contained information about Jack himself, the murders he had committed or the murders he was to commit in the future. As the newspapers received hundreds of letters it is logical to think that most, if not all of these letters were not from jack himself, but were from fakes. The police could not afford to discard these letters as they could contain vital clues. This meant that the police had to search every letter for clues, which meant that the police were wasting their time on these letters, which could have been better spent by actually hunting for jack the ripper. These letters meant that the police had to turn to different suspects and also had to look at many different types of people. For example, many of these letters pointed the blame towards the Jews, claiming that they were those responsible for the gruesome murders of jack the ripper. This was also seen in the witness’ statements when many of the descriptions contained distinct Jewish features. Most probably the witness’ did not see jack the ripper at all but wished for the Jews or the foreigners to be blame as lots of racial prejudice existed in white chapel especially towards the Jews. This mean tat police had to follow up the witness’ statements even if they were untrue and also if a witness did actually see Jack their description ay not compare to those which were fake as many just wished for the Jews to be blamed. This also mean t that as there were a lot of variation between the statements it meant that there was also a lot of suspects who made it harder to distinguish who Jack was.

        In conclusion I believe the main contributing factor for Jack not being caught was that there was too many leads and too little time to pursue these leads. The many letters and a wide variety of witness, created these leads. Also the environment mean t that it was very hard for the police to catch jack red-handed and this was proved when Queen Victoria herself called for “better street lighting”. The police were not equipped to deal with a serial killer, as jack was the first known serial killer and this was shown by the incompatible decisions made between the Metropolitan police and the city of London police which often differed. All of these factors lead to Jack the ripper to get away.