This summer, Republicans in Florida launched an under-the-radar, yet incredibly effective, attack on criminal justice reformers in the state. In mid-June, the Republican speaker of Florida’s House of Representatives asked the state Supreme Court to create a commission to look into redrawing judicial circuit borders. By the end of the month, the Florida Supreme Court had created a commission to review its judicial circuits, moving toward a devastating judicial gerrymander. The effort was a seemingly technocratic act, but it’s actually one of the most direct assaults on the politics of criminal justice reform after years of attacks by state-level Republican officials on reforms adopted in their more Democratic cities.

It also reflects a savvy understanding—and exploitation—of what makes politicians so consistently embrace ineffective, oppressive, and punitive policies.

In most states, prosecutors and judges are elected or appointed by county. The borders of counties are fairly fixed. But Florida is one of about 14 states that defines the jurisdictions—and thus the electorate in them—for prosecutors and judges as multi-county circuits. The state’s 67 counties are consolidated into 20 judicial circuits. In theory, the request from Florida House Speaker Paul Renner was made in the name of cost savings and the demographic and population changes since 1969, when the circuit maps were last drawn. But these borders are easy to change in politically motivated ways, and create a lot of opportunities for opportunistic map-drawing.

Such judicial gerrymandering is new, but it’s reminiscent of the long-established legislative gerrymander, where politicians draw the maps of legislative districts—even against opposition from the courts—in ways designed to cement the current majority’s power for years to come.

Like legislative gerrymandering, judicial gerrymandering will disenfranchise Black voters—but by making it nearly impossible for reform prosecutors to win elections. Opponents of reform prosecutors have long maintained that support for reform is an indulgence of progressive white voters in safe neighborhoods who do not bear the (alleged) costs of the reformers’ policies. But it’s clear that reform prosecutors’ most reliable political base is Black urban communities. In my recent study of precinct-level voting decisions across multiple cities that have both chosen and rejected reform candidates, I’ve found that majority-Black precincts, including if not especially those with high levels of gun violence, generally favor reformers.