Jack The Ripper Conflict Theory Essay

Jack the Ripper is one of the most notable serial killers to this day. His killings started on August 31, 1888 in London, England around the East end near Whitechapel. Around 1:00 am the body of 42 year-old Polly Nichols was found with cut wounds on her neck, stomach, thighs, and genital area. As Ripperologists know he has killed 5 female prostitutes in a time span of August 31st to November 8th. In that time period prostitution was a common practice for women and anyone would have been targeted. To this day they have had many suspects, but there is still no real trace of who could have been the killer. I believe we will never know who the killer was, but the story will be one of the books (Inside the Minds of Serial Killers).

I am going to start this off by talking about the Conflict Theory and how to relates to this case. Conflict theory explains that scarce resources will cause a change or a conflict, and when that change comes it could cause problems for some people creating challenges (The Conflict Perspective). Now I am going to apply this more for the current time period than the killer it’s self. In this time period many immigrants came to England moving to the East End causing it to be mainly populated with foreigners. The English were afraid that

these immigrants were taking their jobs causing racial tension between the immigrants and them. Not only that, it was becoming very difficult for many to afford a place to live. This caused many women and mothers to resort to prostitution only with their everyday job in order to provide (Unmasking Jack the Ripper - The Documentary).
Next I shall explain how Jack the Ripper fits under the category of the Biological Theory.

Biological Theory simply states that someone’s body structure can determine deviance within themselves and around others (Biological Theory of Crime). In the BBC’s Documentary about the reinvestigation of Jack the Ripper they were citing a judge's notes during a court case with suspect, Frederick Bailey Deeming. Deeming stated that the reason he killed a prostitute was because she gave him the syphilis STD and that he ‘intended to kill her without remorse.’ One of the side effects of long lasting syphilis is slowly losing your mind. If that is so then Jack would have went on a prostitute killing spree after going

insane.
Now out of both of these theories I believe the easiest one to pin point would be the Conflict theory. Only because if you look back at that time period that explains how societies actions effected this making it easier for Jack to kill. With the poverty stricken area of Whitechapel and prostitutes everywhere it was easy picking. While all of that is true Biological Theory works if you think about his first victim. She gave him syphilis causing his mental level to go unstable causing the killing spree.
In today’s society most of the things mentioned in this paper have decreased quite a bit, even in England. The major problem with the society in that time period was the improper care of both health and wellbeing of the citizens. If they could have provided better jobs for both the immigrants and the women of that time then society wouldn’t have had to stoop so low to live. At the same time I know medical advances still were not were it is now for STD care, but if they were maybe Jack could have gotten some treatment earlier to help him. Despite all of that Jack the Ripper is one of the most famous and unidentified serial killer to this day, and we will probably never have a case like this again.