Everyday Murders in the nation Drop 37% During the Sheinbaum Administration, Per Official Figures

The typical figure of per-day murders each month in Mexico has decreased by 37% since Head of State Claudia Sheinbaum took office, per recent government statistics. But, security specialists have warned that homicide numbers may not signal enhanced countrywide stability.

Marked Reduction in Per-Day Figures

There was an mean of nearly 55 homicides a day in the month of November compared with almost 87 when Claudia Sheinbaum began the presidency in September. This data was delivered by the head of the country’s national public security system, Marcela Figueroa Franco, during the president’s daily press briefing on a recent Tuesday.

“The result in homicides that have been recorded during these past months is remarkably notable,” the President said, explaining that the previous month the least number of homicides were recorded for any November in the last 10 years.

Historical Background and Official Strategy

Intense organized crime rivalries, alongside the government’s highly militarised efforts to confront the cartels, have caused Mexico’s murder numbers rise sharply in recent years. The rate peaked at a record high of 36,773 killings in 2020, as reported by the nation's national statistics office.

That meant Mexico a murder figure over four times higher than the United States. From that point, homicides have been on the downward trend, falling to 33,550 last year. Claudia Sheinbaum has attributed her national security strategy for an apparently sharper drop in homicides in the current year.

At a media briefing in August, the head of state declared: “There is a strategy, there is tracking of the plan, and there is detailed tracking municipality by municipality in certain cases. The approach is effective. And we have to keep working at it each day.”

The central components of Sheinbaum’s security strategy encompass:

• Strengthening Mexico’s national guard.
• Improving intelligence and investigation work.
• Greater collaboration between government agencies.

Expert Warnings and Statistical Limitations

However, public safety analysts urged caution that relying on murder data to draw a conclusion of peace was problematic. This is particularly true considering the uptick in different criminal activities such as people going missing.

“That would be very good information if this was a drop, but I think we can’t just concentrate on the murder data and think: ‘Oh well, excellent,’” commented Cecilia Farfán-Méndez, an expert on Mexico's criminal organizations. “I would be tentatively optimistic.”

According to the public policy analysis thinktank Mexico Evalúa, murders overall fell by over 20% in the initial 10 months of the current year compared with the identical period last year. Yet, disappearances have risen by 15% and in some regions have surged by as much as 200%.

“Data on homicides is not reliable for assessing the context of public insecurity,” stated Armando Vargas, a security analyst at Mexico Evalúa. “Firstly, we have police and investigators who do not have the capacity or the desire to properly recognize and classify remains. Second, organised [criminals] … have the ability to conceal violence through disappearances.”

Vargas added that using monthly means of everyday homicides was also an issue because it may hide periods when there were notably spiking numbers of killings.

“Using the per-day average renders spikes of violent crime unseen,” he concluded.

Arrests and Confiscations as Metrics of Success

An area where the government can point to the success of its safety strategy is on arrests and seizures. Close to 40,000 individuals were arrested between last October and this past November for high-impact offenses, according to official figures. More than 20,000 firearms were taken and 311 tonnes of narcotics seized.

“Trump can't accuse President Sheinbaum of doing nothing, because in reality she is doing a lot with these many thousands of detentions, thousands of seizures, and all the operational degrading of criminal groups. It’s extremely in political terms profitable,” commented Vargas.

Ongoing Violence and Public Frustration

But despite these actions, Mexico continues to be plagued by high bloodshed, with a number of states in the grip of cartel-related bloodshed. Last month there was a notable murder of a well-liked local official in the state of Michoacan, among 10 local leaders killed in the last 12 months.

A short time later, thousands of protesters protested in the capital and across the nation to express their anger at corruption and narco-violence.

“The administration frames [data] in a way to build a narrative of safety. Politically it’s extremely successful, from a social perspective it’s very questionable,” the analyst concluded.