Day-to-Day Killings in Mexico Fall Thirty-Seven Percent Under President Sheinbaum, Per Government Statistics

The mean figure of per-day murders per month in the country has fallen by 37% since Head of State Claudia Sheinbaum took office, as stated by recent official data. Nevertheless, security specialists have cautioned that murder figures might not indicate improved national safety.

Notable Decline in Per-Day Averages

Officials reported an average of nearly 55 homicides a day in the month of November compared with almost 87 when Sheinbaum began the leadership in the previous September. This announcement was shared by the director of the country’s federal safety system, Marcela Figueroa Franco, during the president’s daily news conference on a recent Tuesday.

“The outcome in killings that have been recorded over these past months is remarkably significant,” the President remarked, adding that last month the lowest amount of homicides were registered for any November in the last 10 years.

Historical Background and Official Plan

Intense drug cartel infighting, combined with the administration's heavily militarised campaigns to confront the drug gangs, have made Mexico’s homicide rate escalate in recent years. The figure peaked at a peak of 36,773 homicides in 2020, as reported by the country’s official data office.

That gave Mexico a homicide figure over four times higher than the United States. Since then, killings have been on the decline, dropping to 33,550 in the last calendar year. Sheinbaum has linked her public safety strategy for an apparently sharper reduction in homicides in the current year.

At a news briefing in August, the Mexican leader stated: “We have a strategy, we have monitoring of the strategy, and we have specific monitoring locality by locality in certain cases. The plan is effective. And we have to persist at it every day.”

The main components of the President's security strategy encompass:

• Strengthening Mexico’s national guard.
• Advancing intelligence and investigative efforts.
• Increased coordination between various authorities.

Expert Skepticism and Data Limitations

Nevertheless, security analysts urged caution that using murder data to draw a conclusion of improved security was misleading. This is particularly true given the uptick in other crimes such as forced disappearances.

“It would be excellent information if this was a decrease, but I think we can’t just look at the murder data and say: ‘Alright, excellent,’” said Cecilia Farfán-Méndez, an authority on Mexican cartels. “I would be cautiously positive.”

Per the policy research thinktank Mexico Evalúa, killings overall dropped by over 20% in the initial 10 months of the current year relative to the same period the previous year. Yet, disappearances have risen by 15% and in some regions have increased by as much as 200%.

“Statistics on homicides is no longer useful for gauging the reality of public insecurity,” stated Armando Vargas, a safety expert at Mexico Evalúa. “Firstly, we have police and investigators who lack the resources or the inclination to properly recognize and categorize corpses. Second, organized [criminals] … have the means to hide violent acts through abductions.”

Vargas pointed out that relying on month-to-month means of everyday killings was similarly an issue because it might mask periods when there were especially elevated levels of killings.

“Employing the daily mean renders spikes of violence less visible,” he stated.

Arrests and Seizures as Metrics of Progress

Where the government can point to the effectiveness of its safety strategy is on detentions and seizures. Close to 40,000 individuals were apprehended between last October and this past November for serious crimes, according to official data. Over 20,000 guns were confiscated and 311 tons of narcotics seized.

“The former US president cannot accuse President Sheinbaum of inaction, because the reality is she is accomplishing a lot with these thousands of arrests, many thousands of seizures, and all the tactical degrading of organised crime. It’s very in political terms advantageous,” commented Vargas.

Persistent Unrest and Societal Frustration

But notwithstanding these actions, Mexico is still beset by extreme violence, with several regions in the throes of cartel-fueled conflict. Recently there was a notable murder of a popular local official in the region of Michoacan, among 10 local leaders assassinated in the last year.

A short time later, thousands of youth protested in the capital and throughout the nation to show their outrage at corruption and narco-violence.

“The administration presents [data] in a way to build a narrative of improvement. Politically it’s very potent, from a social perspective it’s very debatable,” the analyst concluded.