Daily Murders in Mexico Drop Thirty-Seven Percent Under the Sheinbaum Administration, As per Government Data

The mean number of per-day killings per month in the country has fallen by more than a third since Head of State Claudia Sheinbaum began her term, according to recent official statistics. Nevertheless, security analysts have advised that homicide numbers may not indicate enhanced national security.

Significant Reduction in Daily Averages

Officials reported an mean of almost 55 killings a day in the month of November compared with almost 87 when Sheinbaum began the presidency in the previous September. This data was shared by the director of the country’s federal public security agency, Marcela Figueroa Franco, during the leader's regular press briefing on a recent Tuesday.

“The figures in murders that have been recorded in these months is very important,” Sheinbaum stated, adding that last month the smallest amount of homicides were recorded for any November in the past 10 years.

Recent Context and Government Strategy

Fierce drug cartel internal conflicts, coupled with the administration's highly military campaigns to take on the trafficking organizations, have led to Mexico’s homicide rate rise sharply in recent years. The figure hit a record high of 36,773 homicides in 2020, per the nation's official data agency.

That resulted in Mexico a murder rate more than 4x greater than the US. However, homicides have been on the downward trend, declining to 33,550 last year. Sheinbaum has linked her national security strategy for an apparently sharper reduction in homicides this year.

At a media briefing in August, the Mexican leader stated: “There is a strategy, there is monitoring of the strategy, and there is detailed monitoring locality by locality in certain cases. The approach functions. And we have to keep working at it daily.”

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

• Bolstering Mexico’s domestic security force.
• Enhancing intelligence and investigation efforts.
• Increased coordination between government departments.

Analyst Caution and Data Limitations

But, public safety analysts warned that focusing solely on homicide statistics to assess the situation of peace was misleading. This is particularly true given the increase in other crimes such as people going missing.

“That would be very good information if this were a drop, but I think we can’t just concentrate on the homicide data and think: ‘Alright, great,’” said Cecilia Farfán-Méndez, an specialist on Mexico's criminal organizations. “I would be guardedly positive.”

According to the public policy research thinktank Mexico Evalúa, killings in total declined by more than 20% in the first 10 months of this year versus the identical timeframe last year. Yet, missing persons cases have risen by 15% and in certain regions have increased by up to 200%.

“Statistics on murders is not useful for gauging the situation of public insecurity,” stated Armando Vargas, a security expert at Mexico Evalúa. “Firstly, we have law enforcement and investigators who lack the capacity or the inclination to accurately identify and categorize corpses. Second, organized [criminals] … have the ability to mask violence through disappearances.”

Vargas added that relying on monthly means of daily killings was also an issue because it could hide days when there were notably spiking numbers of murders.

“Employing the daily mean makes spikes of violent crime unseen,” he concluded.

Detentions and Seizures as Measures of Success

An area where the administration can point to the effectiveness of its safety plan is on arrests and seizures. Almost 40,000 individuals were arrested between October 2024 and November 2025 for serious crimes, per official figures. More than 20,000 guns were seized and 311 tons of drugs seized.

“Trump can't claim President Sheinbaum of doing nothing, because the reality is she is accomplishing a lot with these thousands of arrests, thousands of seizures, and all the tactical weakening of criminal groups. It’s very politically beneficial,” said Vargas.

Persistent Unrest and Public Frustration

But in spite of these efforts, Mexico continues to be beset by high violence, with a number of states in the throes of cartel-driven bloodshed. In the previous month there was a prominent assassination of a well-liked mayor in the region of Michoacan, among 10 mayors killed in the last year.

Weeks later, thousands of young people took to the streets in the capital and across the nation to express their anger at corruption and drug violence.

“The government presents [data] in a manner to construct a picture of safety. Politically it’s extremely successful, socially it’s extremely problematic,” Vargas said.