Police Investigation

Jack the Ripper is one of the most infamous serial killers in history, and the police investigation into the case was a large, complicated affair. At the time, there were many different powers at play and decisions were made, which could have ended up costing the police their man. The crime remains unsolved more than a century later, and many people put this down to the initial Jack the Ripper police investigation.

How did the Police Try to Catch Jack the Ripper?

The differences between the standard of the Metropolitan Police in the present day versus at the time of the Whitechapel Murders are stark. The Met of 1888 had virtually none of the evidence-gathering, analysis and forensic tools available to their modern-day counterparts. They didn’t even have fingerprinting.

Detectives of the 1880s were reliant almost entirely on catching criminals in the act or fleeing the scene, the most obvious physical evidence left at the crime, witness statements, interviews and questioning people in the local area. And any evidence collected this way had to be collated, arranged and deducted by the brainpower, skill, experience and intuition of the men involved. Medical evidence was scant beyond determining the cause and time of death and psychological, statistical and spatial analysis was primitive at best.

We now live in a world of CCTV, with London being among the most-watched cities in the world. It’s estimated that there is one CCTV camera for every ten London citizens.

If the Victorian police didn’t have cameras on every street corner to collect and review sightings, they also struggled to even see and search for suspects in person. Today’s world is much brighter and better-lit than even the most sparkling Victorian street, and Whitechapel was a warren of unlit streets, alleys, yards and passages.

Note that when Louis Diemshutz found the body of Elizabeth Stride in Dutfield’s Yard, he had to light a match to discern what the object in front of him was. It was very likely that Jack the Ripper was still in the Yard at that moment, at most a few yards from Diemshutz, but entirely invisible in the gloom. Whitechapel was a very dark place in 1888, to an extent that is hard to imagine in our world of electric streetlamps, shop windows, advertising hoardings, passing cars and buses with powerful headlamps and nearly everyone having a phone with a bright LED torch built in. Even the rare unlit corners of modern London aren’t truly dark like the back streets of Victorian Whitechapel thanks to the all-pervasive light pollution from the rest of the city.

On top of this, the first port of call for almost any crime nowadays is to look for DNA evidence. DNA technology came into play in the 1980s, 100 years after the gruesome Jack the Ripper murders. This means the Jack the Ripper police methods were primitive at best, with no way to physically prove anyone’s presence at the crime scene through DNA.

The trouble was, there were so many different eyewitnesses and suspects, many of whom were convincing. Without concrete evidence, getting a conviction was a seemingly impossible task.

Could it just be this lack of technology available at the time that saw the Ripper walk free, or was something else at play?

Police Force Politics

The officers and inspectors involved in the Jack the Ripper investigation faced heavy scrutiny at the time of the murders and continue to be criticised for their actions to this day. Some people believe that if politics within the police force had been less of a factor, there would’ve been more cohesion across the Jack the Ripper investigation.

The Ripper’s victims were found across several London police districts, meaning there were multiple police chiefs and inspectors with jurisdiction and preventing the collation of information. Adding to this, there was discontent between the Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Charles Warren, and the Home Secretary, Henry Matthews. These two figures had been in conflict over how to tackle crime, riots and political unrest in London in the period before the Whitechapel Murders. Matthews was not popular with the press and public and so pressured Sir Charles and the Metropolitan Police to deliver a quick and decisive end to the Jack the Ripper Case. Matthews initially tried to put himself prominently in the handling of the case, then was seen by many in the Met and public to retreat into the background when it became clear that there was going to be little to no glory. It’s easy to see how things got messy when investigating the serial murders.

With so many officers involved, Jack the Ripper's police records were messy at best. Since the murders took place, a number of the original Jack the Ripper police files have been lost – something which seems unfathomable considering a serial killer was on the loose!

Could Jack the Ripper have been caught if the investigating officers communicated better and set aside their personal prejudices, or if the political views of the Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and the Home Secretary didn’t put them at loggerheads? Perhaps if every Jack the Ripper police report was better filed, the current Metropolitan Police Force might be able to solve the case?

Make up Your Own Mind

There are many reasons why the Ripper may have got away with his crimes, with the police investigation being just one. In our casebook, get to know some of the major players in the original police investigation of 1888 and discover how detectives initially handled the Jack the Ripper case. Or experience the locations and atmosphere for yourself – book one of our tours with an expert guide, ask questions and see if you can crack the case where the police of 1888 failed.