Service de police de la Ville de Montréal  The Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) (French for Montreal Police Service) is the police force for the city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada and the neighbouring communities in the Urban agglomeration of Montreal. With about 4,600 officers and 1,600 civilian staff, it is the second largest municipal police agency in Canada after the Toronto Police Service and second largest in the province behind the Sûreté du Québec. The Montreal Police Service was created on March 15, 1843. At that time, there were 51 police officers in Montreal. The first officers did not wear uniforms. In order to be recognizable as police officers by civilians, the first uniforms were created in 1848. In 1853, they won the right to carry firearms in the performance of their duties. In the early twentieth century, the Montreal Police Service counted 467 constables, inspectors and managers. The force was subdivided, as squads of morality and local departments were created. The size of the police force remained roughly the same from the beginning of the century until 1930, when it hired more staff in the context of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. During the Great Depression, tens of thousands of workers lost their jobs and there was an increase in crime. In the late 1930s, the Montreal Police Service had about 1,500 employees. Following the progress of scientific analysis, a mobile laboratory was created in 1957. It evolved and changed in the 1980s to become the technical section. The Museum of the Montreal Police () was established in 1992 to preserve the history of the Montreal Police Service. The following is a list of the Chiefs and Directors of the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal. The force is led by Director of Police Sylvain Caron, formerly deputy director-general of Sûreté du Québec. The rank structure and strength of the force as of 2013 was:   Some of the police functions carried out by the service, include:  SPVM also has about 1,000 civilian employees, as well as about 200 police cadets. Source:  The SPVM covers an area of about 496 square kilometres and 1,958,000 residents of the island of Montreal. There are 33 police stations that operate within four geographical regions: East, West, North and South. Other units of the SPVM, include:    The standard sidearm of the Montreal Police is the Glock 19. Remington 870 shotguns and FN P90 sub-machine guns are also stocked by the SPVM and its Emergency Response Team armory, but these long guns are rarely used.