Why were the police not to blame for the Jack The Ripper murders?

Answer 1

In some ways the police force were not to blame for not capturing Jack the Ripper because of the harsh conditions that they had to work in. A newspaper article describes the streets of Whitechapel as "containing some headquarters of infamy" and "The sights and sounds are an apocalypse of evil" This gives a very negative image of the streets of Whitechapel and leads us to feel sympathetic towards the Police because they had to work in these conditions. The conditions would also affect a policeman's efficiency and make him less alert. //Jack The Ripper lived and killed in a time where the detection of the guilty was not the science it is today. There where no crime scene analysts, DNA or hair and fiber comparison under microscopes. The best they could hope for was an eyewitness that wasn't too drunk to recall what he had seen and articulate it to the proper authrorities. The simple reason the Ripper was never caught was that forensic science was not yet advanced enough for serial murder. Stranger murder is among the most difficult to solve. It is a challenge for modern law enforcement with all the available tools at their disposal. How much more difficult for the likes of Inspector Frederick Abberline trying to basically 'pull a rabbit out of a hat'. The Ripper was not caught simply because the police were not equipted with the tools needed to catch a killer of this type.

Answer 2

Some Ripperologists believe that the police actually did capture Jack the Ripper. Some say the police were to blame for not cathing him. The reports of Jack the Ripper were collected and reported by the police, but then the different newspapers with their political influences slightly distorted the stories to give them their own effect.

Answer 3

Escape may be the wrong choice of words. It gives the impression that he had been caught and was allowed to disappear again. The police cannot be held responsible for the unsolved Ripper murders. They were not equipted with the investigative tools needed to bring down a stranger killer, which is what Jack The Ripper was. Serial killings are one of the most difficult kinds of murder to solve. And in an era where even fingerprints were a new, and often unused, proceedure there was almost no chance to detect the Ripper's identitiy.

Answer 4

Circumstances were to blame not people. Jack The Ripper was a modern killer in an era where the tools needed to apprehend him were decades, even a century in the future. Scotland Yard was just not equipped with the science and knowledge for serial killers. At the time, fingerprints were little understood and as a result seldom used. The microscope, although a reality, was never used for crime detection. Blood typing was not in existence yet. If fact there was no test to tell human from animal blood, and in the east end with all the butcher shops and furriers the sight of blood on any number of people was an everyday occurance. No fiber analysis, luminol, computers, criminal profiling, DNA or polygraphs were available. So that leaves few options. Short of a full confession or the Ripper being caught in the act, there was very little chance of catching him.

Answer 5

It would be so easy to say that the fault lay with police and/or the detectives at Scotland Yard. Nothing could be further from the truth. The police used every resource at their disposal but to no avail. Although JTR was not the world's first serial killer, he was the first to garner so much publicity.

The sad fact is, the science needed to catch this kind of killer was almost a century in the future. In 1888 there was not even a way to test human from animal blood. Fingerprints were a known, but very few detectives understood their use or were trained in the procedure of lifting prints as evidence. It would not have mattered anyway. All of the crime scenes were compromised due to the fact that they knew nothing of blood spatter, fibers, hairs, shoe prints. The police wanted very much to catch this killer but their ivestigative tools and the experience to use them did not exist.

Answer 6

This question pops up periodically and gives substance to the theory that the Ripper was a cop and that's why Scotland Yard never made an arrest. Protecting one of their own. There was also the theory that Inspector Frederick Abberline was the Ripper, again, why there was no arrest. Of course almost anything is possible, but this theory is flawed. Abberline could not have been the Ripper for the simple fact that when the crimes were committed he was home with his wife of many years. If the Ripper was in fact a police officer, his behaviour would have aroused suspicion long before the murder of Mary Kelly.

Answer 7

The police at the time couldn't do much. The Jack the Ripper Murders were investigated by two police forces - The Metropolitan Police, whose headquarters were at Scotland Yard, and the City Police, who had responsibility for the one square mile of the City of London. The Metropolitan Police investigated the murders of Mary Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride and Mary Kelly, and the City of London Police investigated the murder of Catherine Eddowes, who was murdered in Mitre Square, which was on their territory.