by Andrew Smeja

Created on: November 18, 2009

Imagine for a second that you are in this scenario. For your hard work you are about to get a promotion. One of your co-workers who is being passed over for promotion is angry that you got the promotion. He has been working at the company much longer than you have, but the boss likes you more so you got the promotion.

He gets the idea to frame you for drug possession, as he knows in your company even an accusation can mean loss of trust and regular drug tests. He has a friend who he can buy drugs from. He stays late after work, and while wearing gloves he takes a sandwich bag from the office freezer that you have touched, cleans it out well, and then puts a large amount of an illegal drug inside the bag, enough for it to be considered a felony simply to possess it. He puts the bag deep inside one of your bottom desk drawers under several old folders that you will probably never need again.

Now, there is an illegal drug in your desk that you don't know about. You are unlikely to discover it because you rarely use your bottom desk drawer, even if you did its under several old files that you rarely reference. Your fellow employee who is angry that he has been passed over for promotion makes an anonymous call to the police saying that he has seen you sell drugs, and that he knows where you keep them.

For a crime you were framed for, and for which you technically did commit (it is a felony simply to posess certain amounts of drugs because of tough on drug laws), you have been convicted of a felony and sent to prison. Your previous employer is not going to hire you back because he thinks your a drug dealer.

It's likely afterwards that because of gossip around the office word is going to spread that you really were a drug dealer. Many fellow employees who used to talk kindly of you will suddenly start to make up all sorts of drug related stories about you so that they can seem interesting, if only for a little while.

You are out of prison a few years later. In order to cope with prison life and be more able to survive, you had to adopt certain mannerisms of the other prisoners, even get a gang tattoo so that you wouldn't get messed with. Even without a law banning you from getting a job very few employers will hire you.

The few jobs you are able to get are extremely undesirable and dangerous. Your only hope of making a living wage is either to take on one of the most dangerous jobs in America for which you won't earn reasonable pay, or to turn to a life of crime.

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