Daily Homicides in Mexico Drop Over a Third During the Sheinbaum Administration, Per Government Data

The typical count of daily murders each month in Mexico has dropped by 37% since Head of State Claudia Sheinbaum began her term, according to new official statistics. However, public safety experts have cautioned that murder data may not point to better national security.

Notable Decline in Per-Day Numbers

There was an average of nearly 55 killings a day in the month of November versus nearly 87 when Sheinbaum began the presidency in September of last year. This announcement was shared by the director of the country’s national safety agency, Marcela Figueroa Franco, during the leader's regular press briefing on Tuesday.

“The result in murders that we have seen during these months is extremely notable,” Sheinbaum said, adding that the previous month the least number of homicides were recorded for any single November in the last 10 years.

Recent Context and Official Plan

Violent cartel infighting, coupled with the administration's heavily militarised operations to confront the trafficking organizations, have made Mexico’s homicide numbers escalate in the past few years. The figure hit a maximum of 36,773 homicides in 2020, as reported by the nation's national statistics agency.

That gave Mexico a homicide rate more than four times greater than the US. Since then, murders have been on the downward trend, declining to 33,550 in the last calendar year. Sheinbaum has attributed her national security strategy for an apparently more pronounced drop in homicides in the current year.

At a press conference in the summer, the head of state said: “There is a strategy, there is monitoring of the plan, and there is detailed tracking town by town in certain cases. The strategy is effective. And we have to continue working at it daily.”

The central pillars of the President's safety strategy include:

• Reinforcing Mexico’s national guard.
• Enhancing information gathering and investigation efforts.
• Increased collaboration between various departments.

Analyst Caution and Statistical Limitations

Nevertheless, security analysts urged caution that using murder statistics to assess the situation of peace was flawed. This is especially true given the uptick in other crimes such as people going missing.

“It would be positive information if this was a decrease, but I think we shouldn't just focus on the homicide numbers and think: ‘Oh well, great,’” stated Cecilia Farfán-Méndez, an specialist on Mexican criminal organizations. “I would be tentatively positive.”

As reported by the public policy research thinktank Mexico Evalúa, murders overall dropped by over 20% in the initial 10 months of this year versus the identical period last year. However, missing persons cases have gone up by 15% and in some states have surged by as much as 200%.

“Statistics on homicides is not reliable for assessing the reality of public insecurity,” stated Armando Vargas, a safety expert at Mexico Evalúa. “First, we have police and prosecutors who lack the capacity or the inclination to accurately identify and classify corpses. Second, organized [criminals] … have the ability to hide violence through disappearances.”

Vargas noted that using month-to-month averages of everyday killings was additionally concerning because it may mask periods when there were especially high levels of murders.

“Using the daily average makes spikes of violence unseen,” he said.

Detentions and Confiscations as Metrics of Progress

An area where the administration can point to the success of its security plan is on detentions and seizures. Close to 40,000 suspects were apprehended between last October and November 2025 for serious offenses, per government figures. Over 20,000 firearms were seized and 311 tons of narcotics intercepted.

“The former US president cannot claim President Sheinbaum of not acting, because the reality is she is accomplishing a lot with these thousands of detentions, thousands of seizures, and all the operational weakening of criminal groups. It’s very in political terms advantageous,” said Vargas.

Ongoing Violence and Societal Anger

But despite these measures, Mexico remains beset by severe bloodshed, with a number of states in the throes of cartel-driven conflict. Last month there was a prominent assassination of a popular mayor in the state of Michoacan, one of 10 mayors murdered in the past year.

Weeks after, many thousands of young people protested in Mexico City and throughout the country to show their outrage at graft and cartel violence.

“The government frames [data] in a way to create a picture of improvement. Politically it’s highly effective, from a social perspective it’s highly problematic,” the analyst remarked.