What qualities do you value in your police department?
What does the Vancouver Police Department do well in the community?
How do you feel the VPD could improve its service to the community?
Police Chief Adam Palmer posed those questions Tuesday during the launch of a public campaign to encourage residents to give the VPD feedback as it prepares to develop a five-year plan for the department.
“I want you to help us help you,” Palmer said at news conference held at the VPD’s Cambie Street precinct. “We’re your Vancouver police department, your input matters.”
For the past five years, the VPD’s big focus has been on reducing violent crime and property crime. Police have seen decreases in both areas, although property crime is beginning to creep back up, Palmer said.
Targeting gangs, reducing street disorder and campaigns to reduce motor vehicle accidents and pedestrian deaths have also been priorities for a police department that – like others across the country – has seen decreases in the general crime rate.
“Crime is dropping across the country and there’s demographic reasons for that,” the chief said. “But we’ve also noticed over the years that crime has dropped very dramatically in Vancouver compared to some other major cities in Canada and other cities in the region.”
But the drop in crime, Palmer said, should not translate to scaling back the number of officers in the department, particularly when the current complement has been effective in disrupting gang violence and other serious crimes.
“You have to have a fully staffed and robust police department to deal with those issues,” said the chief of the department which has more than 1,300 officers funded by a $257 million annual operating budget. “If you rest on your laurels because crime is down and you start peeling back police resources, then things will head in the wrong direction because the population is going up all the time in this city and we’re seeing our calls for service starting to rise.”
When asked to answer what the department does well, Palmer pointed to successes in fighting crime, creating relationships with young people, analyzing crime trends and a consistently strong profile in the community, as evidenced by annual public surveys.
Though the number of times police interact with mentally ill people is still significant, the chief said his officers have done “extraordinary work” in its efforts to get people help.
Data from the VPD released in September showed that for the first time in years, the number of arrests officers made under Section 28 of the Mental Health Act has begun to stabilize. The chief touted a partnership between the VPD and Vancouver Coastal Health as a reason for fewer people requiring emergency health services.
Asked where the department needs to improve overall, he pointed to the same issue in which the VPD has made gains: mental health.
“We’re going to continue to improve on that and we also need to keep working on property crime because that’s one of the biggest thorns in our side right now,” he said, noting thefts of smart phones and computers are regular occurrences that, with some education, could be curbed.
Residents wanting to give the VPD feedback can fill out surveys at libraries, community centres, community policing offices, the Cambie and Graveley street police precincts or email the department.
More information is available on the VPD’s website.
@Howellings
