DO SPY TV cameras in the streets really cut crime - or do they just move it elsewhere?

Certainly, the evidence of East Lancashire magistrate Roy Gaskell that crime in Hyndburn has shifted a mile away out of sight of the closed-circuit cameras in Accrington town centre is food for thought - even if his view is disputed by the police.

A similar impression came last year from university research in south London which indicated that surveillance cameras had a disproportionate effect on certain crimes. Burglaries, vandalism and vehicle crime went down, but criminals switched to stealing from people when they were inside shops while assaults still took place in the TV-monitored streets.

Of course, CCTV is not a sweeping solution to crime - though its impact on reducing it has been marked in many places.

More value-for-money studies may need to be done to establish its true benefits. But even if, as suggested by Mr Gaskell "simply stating facts" at the Hyndburn Police and Community Forum, the cameras may be displacing crime rather than deterring it, they have other positive values that should be part of any equation to determine their merit.

To begin with, they are a proven crime deterrent in the locations where they are installed. And even if they do shift crime elsewhere - and that is not certain, as we see from the police view that, in Hyndburn, there is no evidence for this - they do make safer the places where there are cameras.

In turn, that makes people feel it is safe to go to those places. In short, some streets and some town centres are being taken back from the criminals - thanks to the spy cameras.

Additionally, the reduction of crime in the monitored areas allows the police to employ their resources more effectively and target manpower in the areas where it is still taking place or, arguably, has been transferred to.

Surely, such bonuses outweigh the doubts about the cameras - and, we believe, will make people want no slowing of the drive for more of them.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.