The issue of security has become one of the most important problems in modern cities. The beginning of the 21st century has shown rapidly increasing urban criminality. Large agglomerations without inherent integrated communities and with decentralized governance cannot implement the regime of law and order efficiently. Without security, a city’s development and growth is not possible. Many factors influence the condition of security in cities but a leading role is played by two of these: the rate of citizen participation in the criminality prevention process through community integration, and the position of the police force in the structure of the country’s organizational law enforcement systems.
Two examples show the importance of the powers of delineation in security matters. In New York City, the Police Department is a part of the city administration and implements policy formulated by the Mayor and the City Council. But in St. Petersburg and all other Russian cities, the Governor/Mayor, City Government/Administration and Legislative Assembly/City Council are not paramount actors in the security policing process. The federal state, as presented by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, formulates security policy and its departments on all levels (regional and municipal) implement it according to principals and through methods fully determined by the federal authorities. These two models and their effectiveness are compared in the article.