The Failure of Police to Catch Jack the Ripper
The Whitechapel murderer, known to many as Jack the Ripper was never
caught and imprisoned for his awful crimes. Police still do not know
who he is. There are several explanations as to why he was never
caught and in this essay I will discuss them.
The police were unable to catch Jack the Ripper as they felt that
no-one actually knew what he looked like. Most statements from
witnesses claimed that, the 'Ripper' suspect must have been a white
male, average or below average height, between 20-40 years old, did
not dress as a labourer or homeless person and was right handed. They
also felt he had accommodation in the East End of London, possible
medical connections, may have been a foreigner, and also have a
regular job as the murders took place at the weekend. Because this
description did not single out anyone, it made it more difficult to
arrest anyone as the evidence was very weak.
Jack the Ripper was a clever man, as we can see from his Modus
Operandi, as he managed to choose different locations for his murders,
yet they were all very close to both public and police scrutiny. Even
though they were supposed to be keeping a close observation over Jack
the Rippers movements, they were too complex for them and the
Whitechapel area was so vast. The 'Rippers' movement around the city
suggests a prosperous man, who may have owned transport.
Media also played apart in the failure to capture the murderer, hoax
letters allegedly from the murderer were sent to the police, news
agencies and individuals associated with solving the crimes. These
hoax letters led the police to waste time and in turn led them to
follow every lead (usually false ones). A few facts blew out of
proportion in the minds of a largely unsophisticated Whitechapel
population. The police spent a great amount of time red herrings,
which were leading them down the wrong path. False starts in
Whitechapel led to more confusion such as, the investigation of the
There was very little structure to the justice system and due to it being so punitive, juries were reluctant to find people guilty of offences (Bentley, 1998). This period of time became known as ‘The Bloody Code’. Throughout The Bloody Code policing was entirely a local initiative, there was not a centralised police force. Constables, Watchmen and Amateur Justices were tasked with crime prevention, crime detection, and general public safety (Reiner, 2000). However, the Watchmen were branded ineffective and there was little to no public confidence in their use, they were ‘scarcely removed from idiotism’ (Critchley, 1978: 18) this view would makeweight of the orthodox perspective suggesting that the New Police were to bring competency and professionalism, attributes which clearly lacked within the private system. Another major issue that affected the public opinion of the private system was the employment of thief-takers. For example, Jonathan Wild, a private detective who was extremely corrupt. Wild stole items from individuals, and then took it upon himself to return these items for a large reward. The revisionist view is that corruption was not an
Crimes was mostly committed by the lower class, the ones who were poor and unable to work. The working class however were not thieves because they are able to afford the necessities of life. Highwaymen, murder, and theft of property were all common crimes committed by males unlike females whose crimes were infanticide, prostitution, and theft. The Ordinary of Newgate’s Account describes how “William Spiggot was indicted for four several Robberies on the High-Way, and found Guilty, with Thomas Cross otherwise Phillips, and William Burrows” (Ordinary’s Account, 4). As described in the lectures those offences were considered crimes without qualification because they were crimes with victims. Social crime was considered a victimless crime, and has no capital punishment tied to it. Highwaymen were hanged for their crimes because they robbed on the King’s highway and that was considered a capital crime. Crimes committed by people like Ethrinton Wrathan who “was condemned…for breaking open the Warehouse of John Hide, Esq; and taking thence 1080 Yards of Sail-Cloth, value £90.” (Ordinary’s Account, 4) This offence was punishable by death due to the reason that any crime over a shilling was a capital crime. Crime was considered a bad path to go on due to the reason that it was easy to commit crime again once that path was
Investigating Why the Police Were Unable to Catch Jack the Ripper I believe the most important reason why Jack the Ripper was so hard to catch was because of the lack of evidence. In those days they did not have as advanced technology as we have today for instance, we have forensics where we can tell from a strand of hair who that hair belongs to. In those days they were only just learning the significance of footprints to catching a villain. Another part to this is that Jack the Ripper was so random towards who he killed the police could not find a link between the murders except that they were all prostitutes, which did not really help, although prostitute murders were not terribly uncommon. The press coverage to the case didn’t help much as they had forced the police to investigate ‘Leather Apron’ and this wasted a significant amount of the police time which, if spent properly, may have allowed them to uncover more information needed to catch the Ripper.
The case of Joseph Vacher was as well-known, more deadly, and even compared to, the murders committed by “Jack the Ripper” so much so that Vacher even screamed that he was “Joseph the Ripper”. This murder, whose identity was unknown at the time, left a trail of terror where ever he went, his capture became a career making opportunity for the investigating magistrates. After Vacher was captured a new branch of criminal interrogation was used to try to incriminate him in the murders that it was believed he had done. The major breakthrough in criminology came in the form of the methods that lead to his capture and identification.
Jack Laidlaw is a universe apart from other examples of detectives, he examines the more intriguing issues of how and why people can commit the reprehensible crime of murder and the harrowing aftermath of crime and violence. Jack Laidlaw can deeply understand people more than anyone could ever imagine. Jack Laidlaw is an odd sort of detective, and this is an odd sort of novel. He lives and works in the gloomy, cheerless heart of urban Glasgow; and he keeps the works of "Camus"," Unamuno" and "Kierkegaard"in his top desk drawer, "where other detectives would normally rather keep their secret stashes of liquor." Unlike many other detectives with uppity tastes in literature, no one congratulates him for this or encourages him in any way; the whole world tells him that However, he persists in trying to understand crimes as well as solve them: “You want to live as if the rest of the world was just a necessary evil and that you have to be a monster to be a criminal,it's not true, it's all in peoples concealed heads. That may be a nuisance to you.
reading "the Juwes are the men are The men That Will not be blamed for
Twelve decades have passed since the killings by Jack the Ripper, and the culprit still hasn’t been found, making it one of the greatest mysteries in history. Only a year before The Ripper’s first strike, there were no records of murder in Whitechapel district. However, The Ripper got his name from the way he mutilated five prostitutes from August 31st to November 9th, 1888, each of them in or within a mile of Whitechapel. The district had the highest percentage of poverty at the time, a shocking 47%. There were approximately 1200 prostitutes in the area while the killings were going on. Montague John Druitt, Michael Ostrog, and James Maybrick are three of the main suspects for who could have been Jack the Ripper.
Muncie J, Talbot D and Walters R, (2010) ‘interrogating crime’ Crime: Local and Global, William Publishing, (Devon). The Open University. pp. 16 – 17.
The town of Halifax in West Yorkshire had never experienced such a manhunt in it’s history (Glover 3). During a short, but long lasting in feeling, time period in late November through early December in the year 1938, the town of Halifax underwent a period of mass hysteria. A mysterious “slasher” hid in the shadows and lunged out with a razor blade at people who passed by (Halifax Slasher).
Ted Bundy was wanted for multiple counts of murder, kidnappings, and escaping police custody. Bundy was placed on The FBI’s most wanted list. “He was also a cannibal, necrophiliac, charismatic sociopath and the man whose name came to define the term ‘serial killer’ for the 20th century” (Blanco). Ted was a very smart person that took the wrong path of life.
When the public heard of the crime, the police perilously needed someone to blame. If a slayer of the 14-year old Mary Phagan were not found soon, public uproar would become uncontrollable. The public needed a victim to blame for the murder of a young white girl. Conditions in Atlanta were favorable for an outburst against the killer of an innocent soul, especially if the accused murder was non-Anglo- Saxon.
On Bloodsworth’s appeal he argued several points. First he argued that there was not sufficient evidence to tie Bloodsworth to the crime. The courts ruled that the ruling stand on the grounds that the witness evidence was enough for reasonable doubt that the c...
In general, official statistics of crime recorded by the police and surveys of the public such as victim surveys and self-report studies are the three main measures of the extent of crime in Britain. The oldest method is to rely on official data collected by criminal justice agencies, such as data on arrests or convictions. The other two rely on social surveys. In one case, individuals are asked if they have been victims of crime; in the other, they are asked to self-report their own criminal activity. (Terence P. Thornberry and Marvin D. Krohn) Although these are a main secondary source of quantitative data, each of them may contain some drawbacks. Thus, this essay will introduce these three methods and demonstrates their disadvantages, such as the police crime statistics exclude the unreported and unrecorded crime;
Crime Scene Investigation For my assignment, I will be looking into the case of James Bulger, aged 2 years old, who was kidnapped and murdered by John Venables and Robert Thompson on February 12th 1993. Through evidence found at the crime scene and testimonial statements, the police saw that the two boys, ages 11, abducted James from Bootle Strand Shopping Center, Liverpool. They took him on a long, aimless walk where they brutally attacked him and left him for dead. In my assignment I will show how work done by the police, forensic scientists and Investigators helped to convict Jon and Robert.
When reporting crime events the media focus only on the negative scenarios that can impact the society, these events are to be know as “newsworthy” (Hall, 1978). Newsworthy crime news is formed through the selective approach taken by the editors where only the main idea of the topic is likely to be reproduced in the media. This is due to crime is not an open event as witnesses are limited hence the selective approach allows the editor to only report the thrilling parts of the crime. (Stuart Hall, 1978: p.53) quoted “‘News’ is the end-product of a complex proves which begins with a systematic sorting and selecting of events and topics according to a socially constructed set of categories”. As a result, this approach has formed bias opinions towards crime reporting as it’s presented in the editor’s point of view (Hall, 1978). The media hence only targets crime with events that is unexpected and events that’s viewed as out of the norm compared to the majority of the society. Alternatively, this changes the view of audiences as they view the society as a ‘problematic reality’ (Hall, 1978). The majority of world is therefore mislead by the fictional reporting of crime as many consumers