The Dewey Bozella Story It can take some people many years to accomplish a dream; Dewey Bozella was one of those people. Mr. Bozella lived a very hard life, at the age of eight he saw his father beat his pregnant mother to death and at age sixteen his brother was stabbed to death in a fight. He then entered into the foster system and a life of petty crime. This was not a very good start at life in which he had so much going against him. At age seventeen he moved upstate New York to start a life which would involve boxing but instead he began an ordeal that would last twenty-six years. On June 14, 1977 a 92-year old woman was brutally attacked and murdered in her house. There was much pressure on the police and the district attorney to solve this crime. It wasn’t until 1983, a time in which he was turning his life around, that a tip from two of the suspects, who were convicts, would bring Dewey’s name into question. At age eighteen Dewey would be charged with murder. There was no physical evidence and that should have been the end of the case, but he was convicted based on testimony from two convicted felons. It wasn’t until 1990 that he was able to get a retrial due to the fact that his civil rights were violated. But again the jury found him guilty and he would return to prison. In prison he was able to get a bachelor’s degree as well as a master’s degree. He also had the opportunity to take up boxing, something he thought her would never get a chance to do. During his prison stay he met a woman named Trena, she was the sister to one of the inmates. He wrote to her and eventually asked her to be his wife; she accepted and they were married. He was eventually able to file for parole but was denied three times. At this point he was thinking he would never be able to get out. Over the course of four years he had been writing a law firm who specialized in wrongfully accused cases. After four years they decided to take his case. After twenty six years he was finally brought to trial and the prosecutor dropped all charges against him and thus he was free to go. The next step was to box professionally one time; he was already 52 years of age. After going through more heartache and disappointment he finally was approved in California to box professionally and he was able to win. The one thing he would consistently tell his wife was to never give up. According to our textbook many theories of deviance are available for us to see. One theory called the “social learning theory which is the brainchild of Edwin Sutherland states that deviant behavior is learned through one’s interaction with others” (23). This can be applied to Dewey’s young life. Although he was wrongfully placed in custody and held there without much regard for his life until someone decided it was worth looking into.

Works Cited
Thio, Alex. Deviant Behavior. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978. Print.
"The Dewey Bozella Story (Great Boxing Documentary)." YouTube. YouTube, 18 Mar. 2012. Web. 24 July 2013.