section_path: Government/Policing and crime
section_name: Policing and crime
paragraph_text: Policing and crime
  
  Vancouver operates the Vancouver Police Department, with 1,327 sworn members and an operating budget of $316.5 million in 2018. Over 19 percent of the city's budget was spent on police protection in 2018 and by 2023 that has increased to 20.2 percent.
  
  The Vancouver Police Department's operational divisions include a bicycle squad, a marine squad, and a dog squad. It also has a mounted squad, used primarily to patrol Stanley Park and for crowd control. The police work in conjunction with civilian and volunteer-run Community Police Centres. In 2006, the police department established its own counterterrorism unit. In 2005, a new transit police force, the Greater Vancouver Transportation Authority Police Service (now the Metro Vancouver Transit Police), was established with full police powers.
  
  Before the legalization of marijuana, Vancouver police generally did not arrest people for possessing small amounts of marijuana. In 2000, the Vancouver Police Department established a specialized drug squad, "Growbusters", to carry out an aggressive campaign against the city's estimated 4,000 hydroponic marijuana growing operations (or grow-ops) in residential areas. As with other law enforcement campaigns targeting marijuana this initiative has been sharply criticized.
  
  Since 1982, when Vancouver's homicide rate peaked at around 9.6 per 100,000 people with a total of 40 murders, the city's overall crime rate has declined, with a few notable exceptions, one being in 1991, when the city surpassed its homicide record with 41 being reported, giving the city a slightly lower homicide rate of 8.7 per 100,000 residents than its peak. However in 2013, Vancouver reached a record low 6 murders, resulting in a homicide rate of 1 per 100,000 residents. As of 2018, Vancouver had the ninth-highest crime rate, dropping five spots since 2005, among Canada's 35 census metropolitan areas. As with other Canadian cities, the overall crime rate has been falling "dramatically". The rate of firearm related violence dropped from 45.3 per 100,000 in 2006, the highest of any major metropolitan region in Canada at that time, to 16.2 in 2017. A series of gang-related incidents in early 2009 escalated into what police dubbed a gang war.
  
  Vancouver plays host to special events, such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference, the Clinton-Yeltsin Summit, and the Symphony of Fire fireworks show that require significant policing. The 1994 Stanley Cup riot overwhelmed police and injured as many as 200 people. A second riot took place following the 2011 Stanley Cup Finals.
  
  To reduce the public health risk from discarded hypodermic needles commonly found on downtown and the adjacent Downtown Eastside streets, the city runs a continuous collection effort, recovering approximately 1000 needles per day from public spaces. According to Vancouver Coastal Health, the regional health authority and a distributor of clean needles to intravenous drug users, there has never been a documented case of disease transmission from an accidental needlestick.