Everyday Homicides in the nation Drop Thirty-Seven Percent Under the Sheinbaum Administration, As per Official Figures

The average figure of everyday murders per month in the country has decreased by 37% since President Claudia Sheinbaum began her term, per recent administrative figures. Nevertheless, security experts have advised that murder data might not indicate improved national security.

Notable Drop in Daily Numbers

There was an mean of almost 55 homicides a day in last November as opposed to almost 87 when Claudia Sheinbaum began the presidency in September. This announcement was provided by the head of the country’s federal public security agency, Marcela Figueroa Franco, during the president’s regular press briefing on a recent Tuesday.

“The figures in killings that we have seen in these months is very important,” Claudia Sheinbaum stated, adding that in November the least number of murders were documented for any single November in the past 10 years.

Historical Context and Government Plan

Violent drug cartel internal conflicts, coupled with the administration's highly military efforts to combat the cartels, have led to Mexico’s homicide rate rise sharply in recent years. The rate peaked at a peak of 36,773 homicides in 2020, per the country’s national statistics office.

That meant Mexico a murder figure more than four times higher than the US. Since then, murders have been on the decline, dropping to 33,550 in the last calendar year. Claudia Sheinbaum has credited her national security approach for an ostensibly more pronounced decline in homicides in the current year.

At a news briefing in the summer, the head of state stated: “We have a strategy, we have monitoring of the plan, and we have specific tracking municipality by municipality in some cases. The strategy works. And we have to persist at it every day.”

The key elements of Sheinbaum’s security strategy include:

• Reinforcing Mexico’s federal guard.
• Improving intelligence and investigative capabilities.
• Enhanced cooperation between government departments.

Expert Warnings and Statistical Limitations

But, public safety researchers warned that focusing solely on homicide data to draw a conclusion of peace was problematic. This is especially true given the rise in other crimes such as abductions.

“This would be positive news if this were a decrease, but I think we shouldn't just focus on the homicide data and say: ‘Oh well, good,’” commented Cecilia Farfán-Méndez, an authority on Mexico's organised crime. “I would be cautiously positive.”

As reported by the public policy research organization Mexico Evalúa, killings overall fell by more than 20% in the initial 10 months of the current year compared with the same period last year. However, missing persons cases have risen by 15% and in certain states have increased by as much as 200%.

“Statistics on murders is not valid for assessing the context of violence,” argued Armando Vargas, a security analyst at Mexico Evalúa. “First, we have law enforcement and prosecutors who lack the capacity or the desire to correctly identify and categorize remains. Secondly, organized [criminals] … have the capability to mask violence through abductions.”

Vargas pointed out that relying on monthly means of everyday killings was also an issue because it could mask periods when there were especially spiking numbers of murders.

“Employing the per-day mean makes surges of violent crime unseen,” he stated.

Arrests and Seizures as Metrics of Progress

An area where the government can highlight the success of its safety strategy is on detentions and confiscations. Nearly 40,000 people were apprehended between October 2024 and this past November for serious offenses, according to government figures. More than 20,000 guns were seized and 311 tonnes of narcotics intercepted.

“The former US president can't claim President Sheinbaum of doing nothing, because in reality she is accomplishing a lot with these many thousands of detentions, many thousands of seizures, and all the operational weakening of organised crime. It’s highly in political terms profitable,” commented Vargas.

Persistent Violence and Public Anger

Yet in spite of these actions, Mexico remains plagued by severe bloodshed, with a number of states in the throes of cartel-driven bloodshed. In the previous month there was a prominent murder of a well-liked mayor in the state of Michoacan, one of 10 local leaders killed in the past year.

A short time after, many thousands of young people protested in Mexico City and across the nation to voice their anger at graft and narco-violence.

“The government shares [data] in a manner to create a picture of improvement. From a political standpoint it’s very successful, socially it’s highly problematic,” the analyst concluded.