With the emergency programme now unveiled, the State of Hesse and the City of Frankfurt are responding to a situation that has once again visibly escalated in recent weeks. What is striking here is not so much the sheer number of new measures as the fact that many of these measures have already been part of the security strategy for the railway station district for years.
As long as one and a half years ago, the Hessian state government launched its 7-point plan and the city centre initiative. Since then, measures have included the establishment of weapon-free zones, the expansion of CCTV surveillance, the intensification of checks and the extension of police powers. At the same time, the City of Frankfurt has invested in additional cleaning measures, drug support services, consumption rooms, business inspections, closer security cooperation at the main station, and an increase in the city police force’s staffing levels. Added to this are ‘Housing First’ projects, addiction prevention and medical support services.
Indeed, the official figures do show some success. Overall crime in the station district has fallen, with street crime most recently dropping by 6.9 per cent. At the same time, however, both the state and the city themselves admit that the situation has deteriorated significantly again in recent weeks. Construction sites and road closures have led to a greater concentration of the open drug scene on Niddastraße. Added to this are homeless people and those with severe drug dependencies from various countries, causing neglect, conflicts and associated crime to rise once again. The situation is now described as “unsatisfactory” even by those responsible.
The new emergency programme therefore relies on a broad mix of measures: an increased police presence, a permanent police station, stepped-up checks to combat financial and social crime, cross-agency raids, faster criminal proceedings, the use of AI in the analysis of big data, initiatives for real-time remote biometric identification, drug checking, a crack substitution study, and further investment in addiction and homelessness support. Urban development measures and the resolution of the construction site situation are also expected to help ease the pressure in the short term.
It is noteworthy that the state itself emphasises that neither the previous 7-point plan nor the local authority measures were ever intended as short-term programmes. They were intended to have a structural impact and to break the cycle of drug addiction, drug-related crime and social neglect in the long term. However, this is precisely where the crucial question lies: if, despite years of measures, an emergency programme is now required once again, will a further expansion of existing tools be sufficient to actually reverse the trend?
The combination of rigorous law enforcement, social support and new technological approaches such as AI-based analysis appears, in principle, to be a coherent strategy. At the same time, developments in the station district demonstrate just how complex urban security issues have become. Crime, addiction, homelessness, migration, urban planning and social integration are directly intertwined and cannot be resolved by policing alone, nor through social policy alone.
Those in charge themselves speak of a ‘long-term commitment’. Whether the new emergency programme can actually halt the downward spiral or merely represents another intermediate stage in a transformation process that has been ongoing for years will therefore only become clear in the coming months. The key will be whether it is possible to combine short-term relief with sustainable structural changes – and thereby permanently regain the trust of residents, business owners and visitors.
