Charles Manson's General Strain Theory

Charles Manson, who is known today as the notorious criminal for the murder of not just one individual, but many. There are many books, movies, and journals about him and his actions that put society on pause for a while. As many today from past history, Charles Manson was a cult leader from the 1960’s. Some terms he describes himself, and what other individuals may describe him as are, a white supremacist, Nazi, a mass murderer, a druggy, and a cultist. The mind fogging issue here was that he didn’t commit the murders himself; he had his followers do all of the murdering, that’s how much of an influence he was the cult he led. He was born November 12th, 1934 in Cincinnati, Ohio making him 82 years old today, and still alive. His residence

is at Corcoran State Prison. Charles Manson is still known today as someone who Satan himself created from hell, and is Satan in the flesh. As this may or may not be true, depending on people’s viewpoints about religion, Charles Manson himself has gone down in history as one of the world’s most immense killers.
Charles Manson’s background is a easy and vivid one to picture in ones mind. Before his cult and murderous days, he looked like the average 20th century American. He was a Caucasian white male, handsome, with a thick black haired beard and long wavy thick black hair. He is definitely the image someone would portray in their head of a stoner guy in the 50’s and 60’s. Manson’s early life though wasn’t the best. His early like and background was mostly fulfilled with neglect, abuse, and a lot of abandonment. So it’s safe to say guide-leading parents didn’t raise him, he was raised by himself and learned the world through his own doings. These negative living arrangements he faced were probably due to the fact that his mom was only 16 years old when she had Charles Mills Manson, on the other hand, his biological father was never there for him and got divorced two years later after Manson was born. Charles Manson lived in different areas; he never really stayed in one area for a long period of time due to his parent’s situation. When Manson was only 5 years old, his biological mother was sent to prison for four years because of a strong-armed robbery she committed. Then when Manson was about 9 years old, everything he had known, including his physical life was turned over to the government and state because of his mother remarrying. He was their property and problem now, not his biological families. All of these factors that added up in Charles Manson’s life definitely shaped his cognitive processing. These cognitive processing’s include the way he would rationally go and think about things, how he would solve issues that would come about in his present and future life, and just how he saw images in everyday life.
The offenses committed by Charles Manson are very well known to about almost anyone who grew up when Manson did and who were just alive in general that heard and saw what atrocities occurred in the late 1960’s by him. Not to mention, Charles Manson is talked a lot about today as a criminal historical figure. He his talked about, studied, and mentioned in psychology, sociology, and criminology classes today. Manson’s was basically not guilty of committing murderous acts. In other words, he was never found guilty of killing people himself. But was convicted for first-degree murder. He had his cult followers do it for him, mostly in the state of California, in the Hollywood area. Manson’s followers were so influenced by the man that they killed many well-known and random individuals at the time with no questions asked by them. Some of the mass murderous killers of the Manson cult went by the names of Charles “Tex” Watson and Susan Atkins. Both of these individuals mentioned went to the cost of nothing to carry out of these murderous crimes of killing. All in all there were about seven people killed by the Manson cult with Tex Watson taking the lead. From all these killings the most gruesome and well-known one was the killing of the actress Sharon Tate. After that murder took place, Charles Manson was deemed a psychopath. The reason for this is because she was eight months pregnant, but nothing was stopping the cult followers and Manson’s orders.
When it comes to applying theory to Charles Manson himself, it’s a pretty simple one to understand, given his negative upbringing and background.

According to one academic peer reviewed journal I have found, we can conclude that Charles Manson can be identified with the general strain theory. To lead into why Charles can me concluded with the general strain theory, I will be giving some simple understanding of what this particular theory means. As the Volds Theoretical Criminology states about the GST, Robert Agnew proposed and documented this theory and it covers a large range of different behaviors in the criminal world. This particular theory is unlike most others and it mostly has to do with individuals’ different social classes of all types, and what economic position people would classify themself in. To elaborate on this broad economic position more, this has to do with lower middle class, middle class, and upper middle class. All in all from Charles Manson’s background to what he evolved in as a psychotic killer, this theory shows the potential stress he faced every single day growing up and the anger that came about in his heart. So it makes the most factual sense that all of that anger, stress, abandonment, abuse, etc. increased the likelihood of him engaging in those hideous and vicious murders of criminal

behavior.
As most of the mainstream media has presented in the past, Charles Manson had a lot of difficult challenges he faced growing up. Most of these difficult challenges were with his family and they didn’t provide the nourishment he needed. As we’ve studied today with past and present theories, we can conclude that people who do have background issues with whatever it may be growing up, they cause the most crime and partake in the most criminal behavior. Versus people who were provided nourishment and good family lives, with them not partaking in criminal behavior, or at least not as much. As I mentioned above, Manson dealt with a lot of moving around, physical and mental abuse from all of his family, he got involved in the drug game and participated in a lot of LSD consumption, as well as being abandoned by family and friends. All of these things led to neglect for the most part and by the time his brain had developed, it wasn’t in the stable mindset it should’ve been in. It makes sense he started a cult because of the fact that he could have power and a certain friend group in a way. Because he never really had the attention growing up as a child, to a teenager, and then a young adult. So therefore the general strain theory that the criminology theorist Robert Agnew presented, made the most sense in explaining why Charles Manson may have committed the crimes he did because of the negative and non-influential environment he was raised in. The GST presents many facts in the theory itself. But one of the biggest facts I want to pull out of this theory has to do with what I think Manson has a lot to be tied in with. Charles had a lot of removed positive stimuli and loving family sensations as we have seen. This theory is mutually consistent with the removal of positive stimuli, which could have essentially had a lot to do with Charles Manson’s built up frustration, stress, anger, and the neglectful acts he was apart of.
Applying the general strain theory to Charles Manson is a simple task to achieve; the reason for this is because it’s extremely relevant to him and his past background. We apply the general strain theory from Robert Agnew by breaking down certain components and tying them in with Charles Manson. First, the components in the GST and what they have to do with Manson are his unjust activities in first degree murder and having others do his dirty work for him with those gruesome murders. Second, he obviously had low social control. The GST talks about low social control in criminal individuals such as Manson. This means for Charles that he didn’t have a high personal government in himself to prevent him from partaking in gruesome mastermind murders. Third, general strain has to do with an immense involvement of magnitude in a person. Manson showed this with his actions and his cruel mind with evolving a cult that would kill people instead of it being a peaceful cult, contained in certain parameters. Finally, the last part of applying this general strain theory by Agnew is that this criminological strain shows that Manson wanted to and did engage in crime, as well as with his partners. This is applied with the actions he took in being the mastermind behind all the gruesome and first-degree murder killings.
Charles Manson himself is sort of a legend in the world as we know today, but not in a good way. He has caused a lot of harm, sadness, and distraught in peoples lives weather they were related to the victims or not. He is famous in the criminal world for certain because people still want to visit him in person and people write him letters. He is also famous in the criminal world because of the fact that many theories have been applied to him on finding out why he committed the acts he did and how he persuaded people to commit murderous acts. Charles Manson will soon die in the physical appearance one day, just like everyone else, but his legend with still live on in the criminal justice system, and the day he dies will be breaking to the world with sadness and happiness from people all over the world.

References

Atchison, A., & Heide, K. (n.d). Charles Manson and the Family: The Application of
Sociological Theories to Multiple Murder. International Journal Of Offender
Therapy And Comparative Criminology, 55(5), 771-798.

Petersen, J. (2005). Charles Manson. Charles Manson, 1.

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