Day-to-Day Homicides in Mexico Drop 37% During Claudia Sheinbaum, According to Official Data

The mean count of everyday homicides per month in the country has fallen by 37% since President Claudia Sheinbaum assumed power, according to new administrative statistics. But, public safety analysts have cautioned that homicide data might not point to improved national stability.

Notable Reduction in Daily Averages

Officials reported an average of close to 55 homicides a day in last November as opposed to almost 87 when Sheinbaum began the presidency in the previous September. This announcement was provided by the chief of the nation's federal public security agency, Marcela Figueroa Franco, during the leader's daily press briefing on Tuesday.

“The result in homicides that have been recorded in these months is extremely important,” Sheinbaum stated, adding that the previous month the least number of murders were documented for any single November in the last 10 years.

Historical Background and Official Plan

Violent cartel internal conflicts, combined with the government’s heavily militarised campaigns to confront the trafficking organizations, have caused Mexico’s murder rate escalate in recent times. The rate peaked at a maximum of 36,773 killings in 2020, as reported by the country’s official data agency.

That meant Mexico a homicide rate over four times greater than the US. From that point, murders have been on the decrease, dropping to 33,550 the previous year. Sheinbaum has credited her national security strategy for an apparently steeper decline in killings in the current year.

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

The key components of Sheinbaum’s safety strategy involve:

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

Analyst Warnings and Data Limitations

However, public safety analysts cautioned that relying on murder data to draw a conclusion of peace was misleading. This is notably true given the rise in different criminal activities such as people going missing.

“It would be very good news if this were a decrease, but I think we must not just concentrate on the murder numbers and conclude: ‘Oh well, excellent,’” said Cecilia Farfán-Méndez, an specialist on Mexican cartels. “I would be guardedly positive.”

Per the public policy research thinktank Mexico Evalúa, murders overall dropped by more than 20% in the first 10 months of the current year compared with the same timeframe the previous year. Yet, disappearances have increased by 15% and in some regions have increased by up to 200%.

“Data on murders is no longer useful for estimating the context of public insecurity,” said Armando Vargas, a security expert at Mexico Evalúa. “First, we have law enforcement and investigators who lack the ability or the inclination to properly recognize and classify bodies. Second, organised [criminals] … have the means to hide violent acts through abductions.”

Vargas added that relying on month-to-month averages of daily killings was also problematic because it might mask periods when there were especially elevated numbers of killings.

“Employing the daily mean renders high peaks of violent crime unseen,” he stated.

Arrests and Confiscations as Metrics of Progress

An area where the administration can cite the effectiveness of its security strategy is on arrests and confiscations. Nearly 40,000 individuals were apprehended between October 2024 and November 2025 for major crimes, according to government data. Over 20,000 guns were seized and 311 tonnes of narcotics confiscated.

“Donald Trump can't claim President Sheinbaum of doing nothing, because the reality is she is doing a lot with these thousands of arrests, thousands of confiscations, and all the tactical degrading of criminal groups. It’s very politically advantageous,” commented Vargas.

Ongoing Violence and Public Frustration

But notwithstanding these actions, Mexico remains beset by severe bloodshed, with multiple states in the midst of cartel-fueled conflict. Recently there was a notable assassination of a well-liked local official in the region of Michoacan, among 10 mayors assassinated in the past year.

Weeks later, many thousands of youth protested in the capital and throughout the country to voice their outrage at corruption and narco-violence.

“The administration frames [data] in a way to construct a narrative of security. From a political standpoint it’s extremely effective, socially it’s highly debatable,” Vargas remarked.