Thirdly, time and resources was wasted on the police investigating over 200 men who claimed to be Jack the Ripper. Many of these people were insane and just wanted to get some attention. Others were doing it to make a mockery of the police force. This made the catching of the Ripper very unsuccessful.
Furthermore, the police could not link Jack the Ripper to any of his victims. The police thought the Ripper did not know any off the five women he murdered. Over 80% of murders that are carried out are by someone who knows the victims but in Jack the Ripper’s case, the police thought the Ripper did not know any off the five women he murdered.
In addition, one of the main reasons why the police was unable to catch Jack the Ripper was because there were two police forces; the metropolitan police force and the city of London police. The metropolitan police investigated four of the murders that took place at Whitechapel and the City of London police investigated the murder of Elizabeth Stride’s. Both forces were rivals and did not co-operate which each other in trying to catch Jack the Ripper. This means that when evidence came up they would not share it with each other and they did not work together. The selfishness of both forces led to the lack of evidence to suspect who the Ripper was, therefore his identity was not revealed.
Moreover, the newspapers put a lot of pressure on the police force. The newspapers sent false letters and made up stories to the police. They also mocked and criticised the police effort. The newspapers did this to earn publicity and more money.
Nevertheless, when the police tried to use two of the best bloodhound in London to track down Jack the Ripper, the bloodhounds ran away because they had not been trained and also the police could not have caught up with them. If the police had trained the bloodhounds then maybe there would have been a possibility that Jack the Ripper would have been caught. The local vigilantes also might have interfered with the police enquires.
As well as the newspapers putting pressure on the police, Queen Victoria also putted a lot of pressure on the police. This could of caused the police to have rushed the case and also missed some vital evidence, which could have helped them to catch Jack the Ripper.
Finally, the police was unable to catch Jack the Ripper because some local Eastenders claimed that at first the police were not bothered if they caught the murderer because the police did not care about what happened to the Eastenders as it was a poor part of London. They claimed that if the murders had took place in a richer place of London like Brixton. Then the police would have paid more attention in catching Jack the Ripper.
In conclusion, I think that the main reasons why the police failed to catch Jack the Ripper was because of the lack of forensic science. If they had this it would have been easier to catch Jack the Ripper. I also think that the newspapers did not make life easy for the police and did not encourage them in finding the Ripper, instead they mocked them and this made the police become less hard working on the case. They also did not have enough description as to the killer might have been as people were giving different opinions. All of this made the police unable to catch Jack the Ripper. However, there might have been possibility in discovering who Jack the Ripper was if the metropolitan and City of London police force worked together as a team.
