49 pages • 1 hour read
Lara Love HardinThe Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Social Context: The Opioid Overdose Epidemic in America
Although Hardin’s heroin addiction was uncommon in her upper-middle-class community at the time of her arrest, opioid addiction has long been an epidemic in America. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the opioid crisis has undergone three waves to date. Wave 1 began in the 1990s and stemmed from an overprescription of opioid-based prescription pain killers. By 2010, heroin was cheaper and more easily available, which resulted in more fatalities and marked the beginning of Wave 2. Finally, by 2013, Wave 3 began with the surge in illegally manufactured fentanyl and other synthetic opioid deaths (“Understanding the Opioid Overdose Epidemic.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2024). By 2021, over 220 Americans were dying every day from opioid overdoses (Spencer, Merianne Rose, et al. “Drug Overdose Deaths in the United States, 2001–2021.” National Center for Health Statistics, 2022).
Hardin began abusing prescription opiates in the 1980s, long before the opioid overdose epidemic was recognized. When Hardin began injecting heroin not long after, she did not know the dosage or how to properly prepare the heroin for injection. She used needles without checking the dosage, quality, or cleanliness.
According to the World Health Organization, sharing needles to inject drugs is the second riskiest way to contract HIV and comes with a host of other medical risks, including infection (“People Who Inject Drugs.” World Health Organization). During her detox, Hardin was admitted to the hospital twice for arm infections related to injections, which, left untreated, could have resulted in her death.
The US government has responded to the epidemic by enacting a series of policies, including the Opioid Crisis Response Act of 2018, that establish social, medical, and law enforcement programs aimed at increasing awareness, providing treatment, and regulating the distribution of legal and illegal opioids.
In the United States, those suffering from drug addiction can reach out to the National Institute on Drug Abuse for help.
Cultural Context: Reentering the Workforce After Incarceration
Throughout her memoir, Hardin critiques the US’s criminal justice system as designed for recidivism rather than reentry and rehabilitation. She focuses on complicated and sometimes contradictory requirements of the release and reentry programs for former prisoners who are dealing with cases across several courts. In Hardin’s case, she was tried in criminal court, family court, and drug court. She was required to submit to random drug tests at any time authorized by any of these courts and had mandated appearances in each. Getting around without a car proved difficult, and maintaining a job while complying with random, short-notice testing complicated her situation. For Hardin, the relative calm of life in prison was more conducive to healing than the stresses of trying to comply with multiple probation requirements while working and single parenting her young son. Hardin had access to taxpayer-funded rehabilitation and reentry programs, so she was not completely without support. She notes throughout the memoir that as an attractive, middle-class white woman, she was granted privileges and given chances that some of her fellow inmates were not.
The state of California, where Hardin was incarcerated, spends roughly $100 million a year on housing and rehabilitation programming for former prisoners. (Lyons, Byrhonda. “California Spent $600 Million to House and Rehab Former Prisoners—but Can’t Say Whether It Helped.” Cal Matters, 10 July 2023). Some are volunteer or charity programs: “The Gemma classes are taught by local volunteers, and the church gives access to the meeting room and the kitchen for free” (177). Despite the availability of such programs, the United States has the highest incarceration rate and a 49.3% recidivism rate, one of the world’s highest (“Second Chances.” Department of Justice, 2022). The formerly incarcerated face stigmas in gaining employment after reentry into the workforce, and Hardin notes her luck in having an employer who didn’t fire her after learning about her history of incarceration. Hardin acknowledges that she is a rare success story and calls attention to the inadequacies of a system that fails far more of its constituents than it helps.
