Geoprofiling

[Tani]

I have always thought this is a useful if sometimes flawed tool.

Have we any good geoprofiles for the Ripper?

What's your personal take on the theory?

[JeffHamm]

It's useful, but the information it provides is often misunderstood.

[erobitha]

Anything that establishes patterns of behaviour is always a useful thing. The best way to predict what people will do is by looking at what they have done before. So more data is always a good thing.

Do I believe it can pinpoint an exact street that a murderer lives on or operates from? No, absolutely not. There are many reasons why anchor points are anchor points, but to say "Jack definitely lived on Dorset Street" cannot ever be accurate.

[Geddy2112]

Geo-profiling, like any profiling can be useful but not to be over relied upon. For example with our case I would suggest he lived rather in the middle of all the crimes as opposed to say for example Liverpool.

[erobitha]

Geo-profiling, like any profiling can be useful but not to be over relied upon. For example with our case I would suggest he lived rather in the middle of all the crimes as opposed to say for example Liverpool.

Colin Ireland lived in Southend. Committed his murders in London. Anchor point being a specific gay pub, but still the police should have just focused on London based suspects?

Too right. It can’t be over relied upon.

[Tani]

Colin Ireland lived in Southend. Committed his murders in London. Anchor point being a specific gay pub, but still the police should have just focused on London based suspects?

Too right. It can’t be over relied upon.

I think though with the lack of cars and transport being somewhat expensive for poorer people, this ought be taken into account. He could have used the railways and coaches, but I would say this may be a stretch unless we are imagining someone with money to burn on trnasport.

[erobitha]

I think though with the lack of cars and transport being somewhat expensive for poorer people, this ought be taken into account. He could have used the railways and coaches, but I would say this may be a stretch unless we are imagining someone with money to burn on trnasport.

I certainly am.

[Geddy2112]

I think though with the lack of cars and transport being somewhat expensive for poorer people, this ought be taken into account. He could have used the railways and coaches, but I would say this may be a stretch unless we are imagining someone with money to burn on transport.

Has to be taken into consideration. Surely one's murder zone would be typically smaller if your only method of transport were your legs as apposed to a private jet for example. (I presume Jack did not have a private jet, but I've heard stranger things put forward.)

[The Rookie Detective]

Geo-profiling is contextually relevant if the perceived foundations are initially correct and the fundamental facts are established early on.


In the Ripper case; it is useful, yet flawed, because such key baseline facts are not universal and left to interpretation of the limited data at hand.


For example; it is still to this day unknown; precisely how many victims the Ripper had.

This then renders the application of Geo-profiling limited at best.

Think of trying to work out how someone has baked an impressive-looking cake, but not being aware of precisely what ingredients were chosen outside of eggs and flour. We would assume the basic ingredients are used, but can't even be sure of that.

How are we then meant to incorporate Geo-Profiling if even the core data is unknown and open to scrutiny.


If we knew exactly how many victims there were and who they were, then Geo-profiling becomes an extremely effective tool to unravel the facts; albeit in a retrospective capacity.

This makes applying the concept of Geo-profiling to the Ripper case a particularly fruitless venture because there's no point trying to work out the intricacies if the fundamentals aren't complete.


A prime example is the notion that the area of Spitalfields was the epicenter of the killings; particularly Commercial Street (and Road,) and the many thoroughfares that ran off the main arterial routes through Whitechapel.
But what if the epicenter is wrong and the it should be further south and east, ergo, St George's in the East?

We had Stride and the Pinchin Street torso, plus McKenzie and Coles, all of which could be considered separate from the likes of Nichols and Chapman.

The obvious choice would be to consider Spitalfields at the epicenter of the Geo-Profiling, but if we were to shift that epicentre; it would shift the trajectory of the entire case and open up new possibilities.

The boundary for the killings has to include Spitalfields, Whitechapel and St Georges in the East to give a higher chance of accuracy in terms of the application of the Geo-profiling technique.


It reminds me of the fact that 69% of all statistics are completely made up... THAT is Geo-profiling in a nutshell.



RD

[Tani]

Geo-profiling is contextually relevant if the perceived foundations are initially correct and the fundamental facts are established early on.


In the Ripper case; it is useful, yet flawed, because such key baseline facts are not universal and left to interpretation of the limited data at hand.


For example; it is still to this day unknown; precisely how many victims the Ripper had.

This then renders the application of Geo-profiling limited at best.

Think of trying to work out how someone has baked an impressive-looking cake, but not being aware of precisely what ingredients were chosen outside of eggs and flour. We would assume the basic ingredients are used, but can't even be sure of that.

How are we then meant to incorporate Geo-Profiling if even the core data is unknown and open to scrutiny.


If we knew exactly how many victims there were and who they were, then Geo-profiling becomes an extremely effective tool to unravel the facts; albeit in a retrospective capacity.

This makes applying the concept of Geo-profiling to the Ripper case a particularly fruitless venture because there's no point trying to work out the intricacies if the fundamentals aren't complete.


A prime example is the notion that the area of Spitalfields was the epicenter of the killings; particularly Commercial Street (and Road,) and the many thoroughfares that ran off the main arterial routes through Whitechapel.
But what if the epicenter is wrong and the it should be further south and east, ergo, St George's in the East?

We had Stride and the Pinchin Street torso, plus McKenzie and Coles, all of which could be considered separate from the likes of Nichols and Chapman.

The obvious choice would be to consider Spitalfields at the epicenter of the Geo-Profiling, but if we were to shift that epicentre; it would shift the trajectory of the entire case and open up new possibilities.

The boundary for the killings has to include Spitalfields, Whitechapel and St Georges in the East to give a higher chance of accuracy in terms of the application of the Geo-profiling technique.


It reminds me of the fact that 69% of all statistics are completely made up... THAT is Geo-profiling in a nutshell.



RD

This I broadly agree with but I don't think it should stop us from trying to use the technique from educated hypotheses; i.e., we could make many maps based on different victims (the C5, C5+Tambram, C5+Tamrabm & McKenzie etc.) and see what comes up. As this case is unlikely to ever be solved I see no reason not to try it anyway, just to see what the results are and if some overlap. I think it would be an interesting exercise for its own sake, especially as it's not trying to find the Ripper's front door, but only anchor sites. One wouldn't necessarily have to assume a London address for this. I've seen some good attempts before.

Also I just find maps really fascinating and visualizing the murder spots etc. on a map makes it much easier for me to pinpoint and makes sense of stuff.

[Geddy2112]

Great post, completely agree.. I think if you use say for example 22 Doveton Street as your starting point you should do okay, you can just make everything fit around that.

It reminds me of the fact that 69% of all statistics are completely made up... THAT is Geo-profiling in a nutshell.

Absolutely, reminds me of a famous quote I once saw...

Not everything written on the Internet is truthful.

[Tani]

Great post, completely agree.. I think if you use say for example 22 Doveton Street as your starting point you should do okay, you can just make everything fit around that.

It would be a strange thing to do as it would be verifying a prior belief rather than putting it up to scrutiny. Doveton St. has never come up as a hotspot in Ripper geoprofiles as far as I know. This doesn't rule out Lechmere but it's a tick in the box on the 'con' side. If you go into something with a prior belief and try proving that belief with a manipulated set-up I wouldn't call that good science

[Geddy2112]

It would be a strange thing to do as it would be verifying a prior belief rather than putting it up to scrutiny. Doveton St. has never come up as a hotspot in Ripper geoprofiles as far as I know. This doesn't rule out Lechmere but it's a tick in the box on the 'con' side. If you go into something with a prior belief and try proving that belief with a manipulated set-up I wouldn't call that good science

Thank you for proving my point. My post might have had a smidge of sarcasm in it. Meaning the Lechmere lovers start with Charles then build a case around him rather than doing the correct way around starting with the evidence and seeing who fits. You reply confirms this

[Tani]

Thank you for proving my point. My post might have had a smidge of sarcasm in it. Meaning the Lechmere lovers start with Charles then build a case around him rather than doing the correct way around starting with the evidence and seeing who fits. You reply confirms this

I certainly have him as one of my top suspects, but if evidence to the contrary rules him out, we need to go with the evidence. Lechmere 'fans' have a bad reputation and in some cases I can see why; it seems to have become an ideology of sorts for people. I feel ambivalent towards every suspect as none will ever be proven. I'm not really invested in any as a hard 'he dunnit'. I think that would be rather strange for a 100+ year old case. I dislike ideologues of any stripe.

[Geddy2112]

I certainly have him as one of my top suspects, but if evidence to the contrary rules him out, we need to go with the evidence. Lechmere 'fans' have a bad reputation and in some cases I can see why; it seems to have become an ideology of sorts for people. I feel ambivalent towards every suspect as none will ever be proven. I'm not really invested in any as a hard 'he dunnit'. I think that would be rather strange for a 100+ year old case. I dislike ideologues of any stripe.

I could give you loads of reasons why Lechmere is not the killer.. just a quick one he would have been at work when Chapman was killed. There are loads of other reasons. Yes Lechmere fans do have a bad rep, the main one is a journo and the other a far right Politian.

Anyway I do not wish to derail your thread.