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Law And Order In The Late 19th Century

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Law and Order in Late 19th Century

The idea of the police force was invented in the nineteenth century. In 1800 there were two police forces in Britain. The first one is the bow street runners, which had been invented in 1749, the other was the Thames River police, which was just two years old. Then the Metropolitan Police force was set up in 1829. This still exists today. This police force was created to carry out the functions of both the watchmen and the special constables. They were to patrol the streets in order to keep order and deter crime. They were also used to tackle major disturbances such as riots. They were used to stop disorderly behaviour. They had to deal with drunkenness, …show more content…

They were seen by some to use excessive force. There seen to favour the problems of the upper and middle classes. Made the work of the police more difficult in working class areas. There were factors contributing to the crime in Whitechapel. Poverty found many to rely on prostitution for money and there is lots of unemployment. There are cramped and over-crowded housing. There is a heavy consumption of alcohol as well which contributes to crime. The first detective work was in 1842. The CID was set up in 1878 to investigate crime. The importance of the crime scene recognized and the value of footprints recognized. But standard methods of detection are to still follow suspicious characters. There was some development in forensics but no use of fingerprints until 1901.

Why did the Whitechapel murders attract so much attention in 1888?

The Whitechapel murders attracted so much attention in 1888 because of three things; the nature of the crimes, the nature of the victims and the press coverage. The press coverage of the Jack The Ripper murders was overdone. Every paper reported different stories and they often exaggerated the murders a lot. Newspapers reported the horrific nature of the wounds in extremely gory detail. Also hoax letters were sent into the newspapers claiming to be 'Jack The Ripper' and this aloud the story to run and run. The

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