5 while various studies in other countries indicate that burglars and other criminals will travel long distances to commit crimes. The Crime Prevention Unit of the Home Office appears to agree. In 1993 it suppressed the findings of a survey on the crime impact of camera surveillance on the basis that the displacement effect had been all but ignored. In other words, crime may be merely pushed from high value commercial areas into low rent residential areas. One of the features of current surveillance practice is that the cameras are often installed in high-rent commercial areas.
Councils often find that it is impossible to resist demands for such systems.
The trend is fueled in part by the insurance industry, which in some towns is offering a thirty per cent reduction in premiums to local retailers who pay a contribution to a CCTV levy system. A nationwide insurance discount scheme is currently being negotiated, and should be in place by 1996. Some police also concede that CCTV displaces crime. Richard Thomas, Acting Deputy Chief Constable for Gwent, recently told the BBC's Andrew Neil that he believed CCTV pushed some crime beyond the range of the cameras. The cameras are also creating a vastly increased rate of conviction after crimes are detected.