When looking at the Jack The Ripper Investigation it is important to appreciate that investigative techniques and awareness have progressed greatly since the Jack The Ripper crimes. Many valuable forensic science techniques taken for granted today were unknown to the Victorian-era Metropolitan Police. The value of interpreting motives of serial killers, the concept of criminal profiling, fingerprinting, and other such knowledge and intelligence that have developed were poorly understood if not altogether unknown. Police recognised a sexual motive or element to the attacks, but were otherwise thoroughly unfamiliar with such crimes.

The investigation into the Whitechapel murders was initially conducted by Whitechapel (H) Division C.I.D. headed by Detective Inspector Edmund Reid. After the Nichols murder Detective Inspectors Frederick Abberline, Henry Moore and Walter Andrews were sent from Central Office at Scotland Yard to assist. After the Eddowes murder, which occurred within the City of London, the City Police under Detective Inspector James McWilliam were also engaged.

On 20 November 2006, the British television channel Five released an E-FIT-generated photo illustration showing what the researchers affiliated with the documentary believe the serial killer may have looked like. A former Metropolitan Police commander, John Grieve, was quoted as saying: "This is further than anyone else has got. It would have been enough for coppers to get out and start knocking on doors... they would have got him". Experts on the case, including author Stewart P. Evans, reacted with scepticism, noting that facial composites are usually only put together through direct questioning of a live witness and that various Victorian police officials investigating the Ripper killings stated that either no one had gotten a good look at the killer, or perhaps only one or two, but certainly not the alleged "13 witnesses" Grieve and others affiliated with the documentary claimed to have based the image on.

The Whitechapel Vigilance Committee was a group of people that patrolled the streets of London during the Jack the Ripper murders of 1888. The committee patrolled London mainly at night in search for this murderer. The committee was led by George Lusk in 1888 and later by Albert Bachert.