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 A week ago I wrote about a Tooele woman ordered to serve her full 15-year prison sentence for child abuse homicide. Connie Jean Long and her husband caused their 5-month-old son to suffocate in 2005 after stuffing a pacifier in his mouth and wrapping his head with an afghan. She first went to prison in July 2005 and was paroled in January 2009. She returned to prison in  February 2010 and was paroled for the second time four months later. But Long again violated terms of her release and was brought back to prison in April 2012. The Utah Board of Pardons and Parole held a parole hearing for Long on Oct. 1. About a week later, the board decided Long will not be released until January 2020. On the left is a Scribd file containing a transcript, with minor redactions, of the October board hearing. The breaks between sections are intended to make reading the transcript easier. I am sharing it to show the complexity of the situations the board’s hearing officers sometimes encounter. Long is a troubled woman, no doubt. That’s not the question. I hope that readers will focus on the policy questions cases such as this one pose. Are Utah’s mental health and prison systems adequately equipped and funded to help people such as Long so they don’t hurt themselves or, as in this case, innocent children? What programs are available to offenders?  Education? Jobs? Mental health and drug treatment? What kind of support do they have once back in the community? What’s the best way to deal with women who come from abusive backgrounds and relationships? In this hearing, it seems apparent the system failed to work for the Tooele mother before — and after  — her third child died. Long, 37, is identified by the initials “CJL.” Board member Chyleen A. Arbon, who conducted the hearing, is identified by the initials “HO.” At the start of the hearing, the two discuss Long’s current mental health status and medications she is taking for depression and sleep.
HO
: What are your nightmares?
CJL
: It’s because of my crime, of my son dying. I see that every day. And it just kind of wakes me up. It’s different nightmares of him just laying there.
HO
: Where did he pass away? Was it in your home or was he in the hospital?
CJL
: He was in my home.
HO
: So you found him passed away. That’s the recurring nightmare, of you finding him?
CJL
: Yeah.
HO
: Let’s talk a little bit about your substance abuse. What treatment have you had?
CJL
: I did Excell [a therapeutic residential program in the women’s prison] in 2008.
HO
: So did you complete it? Successfully?
CJL
: Yes. And graduated it, yes.
HO
: But then you’ve relapsed since then, right?
CJL
: No. I haven’t done any drugs actually since 2004.
HO
: I thought you were on drugs during your pregnancy.
CJL
: No.
HO
: Just a previous one, not…
CJL
: Yeah, because I was in Orange Street [a halfway house for women] when I was pregnant.
HO
: Alright. You completed your high school diploma.
CJL
: [Yes]
HO
: And you enrolled in some college in 2008.
CJL
: Yes.
HO
: How far did you get?
CJL
: I did one semester, and then I was removed because they took me [to a] county [jail].
 
HO
: OK. You had trouble completing Orange Street, tried to complete it twice and couldn’t complete it. Tell me why.
CJL
: Because I continue on going out there and being codependent on men. So I would hook up with my ex-boyfriends, and it was like I couldn’t get a job and keep it because of my crime.
HO
: Because they’d find out your crime and dismiss you?
CJL
: Well, I would tell them and then they’d say something, and then it would be like I would be gone. Others would be like they would fire me. So I had a hard time holding down a job.
HO
: What is your current support system?
CJL
: I have a little bit of a support system, but not much.
HO
: So tell me what it consists of.
CJL
: It consists of two of my best friends.
HO
: But they have records?
CJL
: No.
HO
: No? Drug use?
CJL
: No. One of my best friends I’ve known since I was in elementary school.
HO
: Are they both female?
CJL
: Yes.
HO
: So two best friends. They are both female and they are both clean and crime free and stable?
CJL
: Yes.
HO
: Anybody else?
CJL
: And then my brother.
HO
: What’s his situation like?
CJL
: He is working right now and he’s living with my best friend’s dad and brother.
HO
: Is he stable, crime free, drug free, or does he have a record?
CJL
: He doesn’t have a record. I’m the bad child.
HO
: OK, so can you just kind of walk me through your history a little bit. You had two babies, adopted them out. You have a third baby, it passes away. You have two more babies. Walk me through this and help me understand where you’re coming from.
CJL
: I gave up my oldest two kids in 2000.
HO
: How old were they when you placed them?
CJL
: My first oldest was 4, almost 4, and my baby was just a baby in the hospital.
HO
: So you had a 4-year-old and a baby. And you gave them up. Why?
CJL
: Because the baby was born to drugs.
HO
: What year was that?
CJL
: 2000.
HO
: Do you know anything about how those two children are doing?
CJL
: No.
HO
: How many men are fathers to your children?
CJL
: Three. No, four.
HO
: So four. Which two are coupled?
CJL
: My oldest son has a dad, then the baby that just died and my second-oldest have the same father.
HO
: I missed that. Say that one more time.
CJL
: My second-oldest and the baby that just passed away.
HO
: So the first child has one father, and then the second child has a different father?
CJL
: Yes, and the child that died also has the same father as the second-oldest.
HO
: So your second and third child have the same father, and then the first child has a different father,
 
The fourth and the fifth child each have a different father.
CJL
: Yes.
HO
: All four of these fathers, they’re all convicted felons, is that correct?
CJL
: No.
HO
: All but one?
CJL
: All but one, yes.
HO
: Which one?
CJL
: [name deleted], my first ex.
HO
: So the father of your first child is not a convicted felon, the rest are. ... Two children, you’re on drugs, you place them for adoption. How long after do you get pregnant with your third child?
CJL
: It was in 2003 that I got pregnant with him.
HO
: Why do you think you continue, when you know you’re codependent on men — maybe you didn’t know that back then, maybe you’re just coming to that awareness — why aren’t you prohibiting these pregnancies? Why are you continuing to get pregnant?
CJL
: I’m not continuing to get pregnant. I’m not deliberately getting pregnant.
HO
: But why aren’t you doing anything to stop? No foresight?
CJL
: No, but I know now that I’m a codependent on men and I don’t want that anymore.
HO
: Alright, so let’s talk a little bit about what happened to your child that passed away.
CJL
: OK. He had an afghan smothered around, covering his face, to hold the pacifier in his mouth.
HO
: And whose idea was that?
CJL
: It was mine and my husband’s.
HO
: Why did you think that was a good idea?
CJL
: I don’t know, we just thought it was. But we didn’t know exactly the circumstances of what was going to happen.
HO
: You couldn’t see that far into the future, that wrapping a blanket around his head would suffocate him?
CJL
: No.
HO
: I find that really hard to believe. Is it because you were on drugs or do you really think that’s just what you thought?
CJL
: Well, because I wasn’t on drugs at that time because I was trying to stay clean to keep him.
HO
: Was he [her husband] on drugs?
CJL
: He might have been, yes.
HO
: You don’t know?
CJL
: I have no idea, no.
HO
: And you’re how old at that time?
CJL
: Twenty-eight.
HO
: I’m having a hard time processing that. Do you have a hard time processing that?
CJL
: I do actually.
HO
: How a 28-year-old who is not on drugs, who’s had two children before, so this isn’t your first child — you’d obviously raised one to 4-years-old so you’d been through the whole baby phase — would not think that wrapping a blanket around a baby’s face would suffocate them.
CJL
: I know. That’s what’s hard for me. I don’t understand it. It’s definitely hard for me. I’m not denying it.
HO
: Yeah, I’m just trying to wrap my head around it. So, after that happens you get pregnant two more times. Where’s your thinking at that point?
CJL
: I wasn’t thinking.
HO
: You still weren’t on drugs?
CJL
: No.

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