Application of Criminological Theory to a Selected Criminal Case

José Rodolfo Villarreal-Hernandez, more commonly referred to as El Gato, was added to the FBI Ten Most Wanted list in 2020 because he allegedly participated in a murder-for-hire scheme that culminated in the death of Juan Jesús Guerrero Chapa, a Mexican attorney. Villarreal-Hernandez, who was a key member of the Beltrán-Leyva cartel, reportedly ordered and directed the assassination because of bad blood in previous years. According to the FBI (2020), Villarreal-Hernandez had a network of individuals working for him who tracked the victim for almost two years in various states before the murder took place in Southlake, Texas. His participation displays a pattern of organized crime planning, loyalty to a cartel hierarchical structure, and socially inured to an environment of violence.

Edwin H. Sutherland’s (1939) Differential Association Theory provides a good explanation for the behavior exhibited by Villarreal-Hernandez. The theory postulates that criminality is learned through social exchanges with people who already participate in criminality. This learning involves the learning of techniques, motivations, and rationalizations that make it acceptable to violate the criminal law in violating behavior (Linden, Whitehead, & Cowell, 2023). The individuals who live in an environment where deviance is accepted will be influenced to participate in activities that that behavior is acceptable.

In the case of Villarreal-Hernandez, the long-term exposure of himself to the culture of the cartel helped shape his attitudes regarding power, revenge, and loyalty. His associates were those who illustrated to him the effectiveness of violence as a means of self-resolution would have taught him to view murder in the context of a strategic tool instead of a violation of one’s morality. His conduct is indicative of learned behavior and thus a value structure explained by Sutherland’s Differential Association Theory.