Describe law and order in the late 19th century.

Whitechapel coursework

The idea of the police force was invented in the nineteenth century. In 1800 there were two police forces in Britain. The first one is the bow street runners, which had been invented in 1749, the other was the Thames River police, which was just two years old. Then the Metropolitan Police force was set up in 1829. This still exists today. This police force was created to carry out the functions of both the watchmen and the special constables. They were to patrol the streets in order to keep order and deter crime. They were also used to tackle major disturbances such as riots. They were used to stop disorderly behaviour. They had to deal with drunkenness, beggars, vagrants and prostitutes.

They were ‘not meant to solve crime’; there concentration was to prevent crime. Detective work was in its infancy and there were few officers on the ‘beat’ in London. Before 1829 watchmen and parish constables patrolled the streets of many British towns and cities. They were probably quite effective, because they new the local area and local troublemakers, but little is known about them. These officers could not deal with riots. The Police force adopted the blue uniform, with tailcoat, a top hat as few badges and decorations as possible because they were getting confused with the army. In 1839 the Rural Constabulary Act allowed magistrates to decide whether or not to set up police forces in each country.

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The whole system was sorted out to some extent in 1856 when the C&B act made all countries have a police force. The new police force was unpopular, mainly because of its methods of crowd control. Another reason is of the baton charge and it was used in 1833 at the Baths’ Fields in London. The reputation of the police force was quite aggressive. They were seen by some to use excessive force. There seen to favour the problems of the upper and middle classes. Made the work of the police more difficult in working class areas. There were factors contributing to the crime in Whitechapel. Poverty found many to rely on prostitution for money and there is lots of unemployment. There are cramped and over-crowded housing. There is a heavy consumption of alcohol as well which contributes to crime. The first detective work was in 1842. The CID was set up in 1878 to investigate crime. The importance of the crime scene recognized and the value of footprints recognized. But standard methods of detection are to still follow suspicious characters. There was some development in forensics but no use of fingerprints until 1901.

Why did the Whitechapel murders attract so much attention in 1888?

The Whitechapel murders attracted so much attention in 1888 because of three things; the nature of the crimes, the nature of the victims and the press coverage. The press coverage of the Jack The Ripper murders was overdone. Every paper reported different stories and they often exaggerated the murders a lot. Newspapers reported the horrific nature of the wounds in extremely gory detail. Also hoax letters were sent into the newspapers claiming to be ‘Jack The Ripper’ and this aloud the story to run and run. The only letter, which, still today, is accepted to be the writing of the real Ripper, is called the ‘Boss Letter’ and many people think it’s true because in the letter the Ripper said he would chop of the victim’s liver and eat it. Then one of the newspapers received a parcel containing half of a liver with a note in saying ‘I ate half of the liver, it was very nice.’

I think that the most important reason why the Whitechapel murders attracted so much attention in 1888 was the media. They were a new age in Journalism, newspapers were competing for the most readers by using the best stories, but sometimes this was not true. They needed to write and print the most sensational stories. It was through the media that so many people heard about the murders in the first place, and the papers played on the fear that people had by reporting to the best of their ability all the gory details to try to sell the most papers, this made people panic. There was also a thing called ‘radical press’. These newspapers wanted a change in government: They used the failure to catch ‘Jack The Ripper’ as a way to attack the ‘establishment’ and especially to the interest on or rather morbid fascination of the public with the murders. It attracted so much attention also because of the nature of the crimes and victims. There was an unusual and increasing ferocity of the attacks. The rising numbers of murders as the police failed to catch ‘Jack The Ripper’. Also the middle classes saw, in the crimes, the treat of disorder and possible retribution by the poor. All the victims were prostitutes by the poor, so there was some surprise that the poor should be attacked.

Why were the police unable to catch ‘Jack The Ripper’?

Police were unable to catch ‘Jack The Ripper’ because there was a lack of modern forensics; finger printing wasn’t used until 1901. They were no blood tests. Police also had to catch the killer in the act or killings had to be seen by eyewitnesses. They failed to use what little evidence they had, properly. Also they were quick to believe in false leads like leather apron. The police had poor detection methods. They didn't know what methods were successful and which methods weren't. Finger printing had not yet been invented and photographing had only just been introduced.

There was no such thing as forensic evidence back then either, just the clues that they found in the area of the crime and on the body. Most of the time the CID spent looking for foreigners in Whitechapel, they believed that the killer lived in Whitechapel. Detectives had very little experiences as the CID department had only been running for 10 years. This meant that the detectives had very little experience with killers, and with the fact that there was no fingerprinting of forensic evidence this meant that there was very little that the detectives could do, they had many limitations. It was the lack that all the murders look place of weekends did not make the police look for any other than locals. Police did not work together; there was a battle against the police forces because they both wanted the glory of catch ‘Jack The Ripper’.

It would have been very dark, they would not have had a watch so they would have had to guess the time. They would not have been able to be exact, the time was only able to be told by the hourly chiming of the big clock, and this would have made the time that they could give the police only rough estimates.

The police had no idea of how to track a serial killer, it had never been done before, and they had no idea of where to start and what was the best way of tracking him. Also Homelessness was a major problem at the time, so street was packed with prostitutes, immigrants and unemployed people, all looking for some way to gain money.

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