Terry defines a Fourth Amendment standard for police street encounters, and that standard is itself defined in terms of the substantive law. That is, what Terry means depends on what substantive criminal law means. Fourth Amendment law matters, and it is worth trying to do right. But it matters much less than we tend to think--and political controls, spending decisions, and decisions about what crimes we want stopped matter much more. If we want to understand and control police misconduct, we would do well to look to those other forces. They are more important than Terry.
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