Day-to-Day Killings in the nation Fall Over a Third Under Claudia Sheinbaum, According to Government Figures

The mean number of daily killings per month in the country has dropped by thirty-seven percent since President Claudia Sheinbaum assumed power, as stated by new official figures. But, public safety specialists have cautioned that homicide figures could fail to point to improved national stability.

Marked Reduction in Daily Figures

Officials reported an mean of nearly 55 killings a day in November versus almost 87 when Claudia Sheinbaum took the presidency in September of last year. This announcement was delivered by the head of the country’s national public security system, Marcela Figueroa Franco, during the president’s daily press briefing on Tuesday.

“The outcome in murders that we have seen during these months is very important,” Sheinbaum stated, explaining that in November the smallest amount of homicides were registered for any single November in the last decade.

Recent Context and Government Strategy

Intense drug cartel internal conflicts, combined with the government’s heavily military operations to confront the drug gangs, have led to Mexico’s murder rate rise sharply in the past few years. The figure peaked at a maximum of 36,773 killings in 2020, as reported by the nation's official data office.

That resulted in Mexico a murder figure over 4x higher than that of the United States. From that point, killings have been on the downward trend, declining to 33,550 last year. Sheinbaum has linked her public safety plan for an ostensibly steeper decline in killings in the current year.

At a news briefing in the summer, the Mexican leader said: “There is a plan, there is oversight of the strategy, and there is detailed tracking municipality by municipality in certain cases. The plan is effective. And we have to keep working at it every day.”

The key components of Sheinbaum’s safety plan encompass:

• Reinforcing Mexico’s domestic security force.
• Improving intelligence and investigation efforts.
• Enhanced cooperation between various departments.

Analyst Skepticism and Statistical Limitations

Nevertheless, public safety analysts cautioned that using murder statistics to draw a conclusion of peace was problematic. This is particularly true considering the increase in different crimes such as forced disappearances.

“This would be excellent news if this was a decrease, but I think we can’t just concentrate on the homicide data and say: ‘Alright, excellent,’” commented Cecilia Farfán-Méndez, an authority on Mexico's cartels. “I would be tentatively positive.”

As reported by the public policy analysis thinktank Mexico Evalúa, killings overall declined by more than 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 states have surged by as much as 200%.

“Numbers on murders is no longer useful for estimating the context of violence,” said Armando Vargas, a security expert at Mexico Evalúa. “First, we have law enforcement and investigators who do not have the resources or the will to correctly identify and classify corpses. Second, organized [criminals] … have the ability to hide violence through disappearances.”

Vargas added that using month-to-month averages of everyday killings was also an issue because it might obscure days when there were notably high numbers of killings.

“Relying on the per-day mean renders spikes of violence unseen,” he stated.

Detentions and Confiscations as Metrics of Progress

Where the government can highlight the effectiveness of its security strategy is on arrests and confiscations. Nearly 40,000 people were arrested between October 2024 and this past November for high-impact offenses, per official data. More than 20,000 guns were seized and 311 tons of narcotics intercepted.

“The former US president cannot accuse President Sheinbaum of not acting, because actually she is doing a lot with these many thousands of detentions, many thousands of confiscations, and all the tactical weakening of criminal groups. It’s highly politically advantageous,” said Vargas.

Persistent Violence and Public Frustration

Yet notwithstanding these efforts, Mexico remains beset by severe bloodshed, with several states in the midst of cartel-driven violence. In the previous month there was a notable murder of a well-liked mayor in the state of Michoacan, one of 10 local leaders assassinated in the last year.

A short time after, many thousands of young people took to the streets in Mexico City and throughout the country to show their outrage at corruption and drug violence.

“The federal government shares [data] in a manner to construct a narrative of improvement. From a political standpoint it’s extremely effective, socially it’s highly questionable,” the analyst said.