Gang leader belongs right where he is — a federal supermax prison
Chicago gang kingpin Larry Hoover is in a federal supermaximum prison in Colorado for the best of reasons: He remains seriously dangerous.
He needs to stay there. Hoover’s legal team has asked that the Gangster Disciples founder’s life sentence be reduced, which would allow him to be moved to an Illinois state prison to serve out a 200-year state term. In 2018, rapper Kanye West unsuccessfully asked President Donald Trump to commute Hoover’s sentence.
But here’s the problem: The last time Hoover was behind bars in Illinois, he went right on running his gang from his prison cell. And as recently as five years ago — not some distant past — he apparently tried to continue to run his gang from the federal supermax, using a secret code to communicate with a fellow imprisoned gang member.
Moreover, in Hoover’s nearly quarter century in the federal prison, he has been accused of holding down an inmate while another inmate punched him for eight minutes and threatening to set fires and flood prison cells to get fellow locked-up gang members a better recreation space.
In what world does Hoover deserve a break?
Hoover was sent to a state prison in 1973 for ordering a murder. While behind bars, he ran a criminal enterprise, which included drug conspiracy and extortion in Chicago and other cities. Officials say Hoover’s gang grew to as big as 30,000 members and was selling more than $100 million in drugs a year. Hoover was convicted in federal court and sent to the supermax prison.
In 2018, President Donald Trump signed the First Step Act, which allows prisoners to seek reduced sentences because of changes in court rules and laws since they were convicted. Two of Hoover’s lieutenants have been released under the First Step Act. The law itself looks defensible to us — laws and people change — but it wasn’t designed for the likes of Hoover.
Should Hoover be transferred back to a state prison, it would be easier for him to resume his criminal activities. It would also send a signal to other gang members, still out on the streets, that maybe they could play the system, too.
As we wrote in an editorial in 1997, “There is some unfinished business from the Larry Hoover trial: making sure no other criminal can do what Hoover did — orchestrate a $100 million drug business from a state prison cell.”
That unfinished business continues. Hoover belongs right where he is.