Generolo Jono Žemaičio Lietuvos karo akademija

The article presents the current issues and latest trends of the first public security policy priority – analysis is made of how public security is ensured in the field of public order. The research starts with the discussion of the legal basis for ensuring public order, primarily revealing the concept of public order as such and today’s main threats to public order. Further, analysis covers the problematic aspects of the legal protection of public order: the legal mechanisms of order protection are discussed, whether they are effective, if not effective, how the legal regulation in this field is to be perfected. Attention is also devoted to the problems of human rights protection while ensuring public order. Hereafter, an analysis is provided of the administrative aspects of ensuring public order, covering the setup of the state and municipal institutions, responsible for maintenance of public order, and problems of their activity organisation and coordination. Special attention in this work is devoted to the state-of-the-art problematic aspects of police activity organisation, to the compatibility of the functions and competences of the Public Security Service, analysis of strategic goals, to the research of the opportunities of municipality and local communities for their participation in maintaining public order. As a result in this research is emphasised the importance of decentralisation in ensuring public order; the main guidelines of modernisation in this field are presented. The authors applied general scientific methods of studying objective reality, peculiar to legal sciences: systematic document analysis, meta-analysis, structural-functional analysis, teleological, comparative, critical approach, generalisation and prediction.