Why were the police unable to catch Jack the ripper?

Shane Lightfoot

There are many factors and possible reasons to why the police were unable to catch Jack the Ripper. The Ripper is thought to have been very clever in the way that he manipulated the fact that there were two police forces around in this time, both in direct competition with each other. Jack the Ripper was thought to be a resident in London, the general public and the press wasted time with false leads, hoax letters and red herrings. There were very little clues, Jack the Ripper was very careful about what he did and left no leads for the police to follow up. There was never any one description of the killer; each witness gives a different description as to how they saw him. The Ripper struck at random and there was no connection established between him and his victim. The police and the CID were still in their infancy after just being founded, they had little or no experience with serial killers as the ripper was the first one, and the killer was took quick for beginners.

The press played a very big part in the fact that the police were unable to catch the Ripper. They made up many hoax letters to publish in their papers and they sent these to the police. Time was wasted following up false leads mentioned in the hoax letters. The police could have been following up other leads and checking out other pieces of evidence rather than following up a lot of hoax letters. It wasn't just the press that made and sent in hoax letters, members of the public did this and as in any murder case all leads have to be followed up even though they didn’t have the resources and experience to do so, this would have wasted more time because after the police had checked it out then there would be nothing at the end of it. These letters and false leads led to a lot of work that was time consuming and needed more officers to help with it. This meant that there were fewer officers to take care of other problems, such as theft and burglary.

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Other reasons as to why the killer was not caught were because the killer seemed very calm under pressure; he was able to kill in the middle of the streets where the victims lived. He had no fear of killing in the women's own neighbourhoods and was very quiet. He attracted no attention when he was killing, making very little or no noise at all. The police patrols were stepped up at the time of the murders so there would have been more police on the streets and on regular patrols, yet the killer was still able to kill the women on the streets where anyone could have seen him. After killing, the killer was able to stay very calm when he was mutilating he victim's body. The Ripper was a very clever and cunning person; he was able to play off the two competing police forces against each other. Each force had boundaries, which any of the other force was not allowed to cross when in uniform and patrolling for the ripper.

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. 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 than 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, but was also thought that he was an outsider and only visited at the weekend. Detectives had very little experiences as the CID department had only been running for10 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

The methods that the killer used stopped him from ever being caught too. He was very skilled at what he did and knew exactly what he was doing. The killer only carried out the killings in the dark of the night, so as not to been seen. He was very quick and quiet, very much to the point; he managed to take the victim and lead them into a false sense of security, taking advantage of the fact that they were prostitutes and often went off with strange men. He was very quick at what he did, leaving little or no time to be caught by the police. The murdering were cold blooded and ruthless. One of the biggest reasons for the police not catching the killer is that the police force was initially created for the prevention of crime and not the solving of crime. The police had no idea how to solve crime; all of their years of experience had been in the prevention. This was their strongest point and they didn't know how to do police work any other way. The fact that they were very inexperienced in the solving aspect of police work meant that they did not know what to do, and what not to do. The first thing that the police did when they realized that they had a serial killer on the loose was to increase the number of police officers that they had on the street, this had not effect to the case and they shortly realized this and focused mainly on solving the crime instead of preventing it from happening again.

Jack the Ripper was never caught because the police were still very much in their infancy, they were inexperienced and did not have the methods that we have today of tracking down the killer. The killer left very little evidence and leads giving the police nothing to follow up. Time was wasted chasing up fake letters that were made by the general public and the papers; time was also wasted on the hunt for a foreigner that lived in Whitechapel. Police had little help from the witnesses or the doctors, as their evidence conflicted and there was no one description of the killer. The killer was skilled, quick and quiet; he used his brains in playing the two police forces off against each other causing the police to pick up nothing. The fact that they kept things from each other and were in constant competition did not help in the search either; neither did the two forces handling of certain evidence and not sharing their resources. These are the reasons as to why the police were unable to catch Jack the Ripper.