Day-to-Day Murders in the nation Fall Over a Third During the Sheinbaum Administration, According to Government Statistics
The average count of everyday murders per month in Mexico has fallen by thirty-seven percent since Head of State Claudia Sheinbaum took office, per new government data. However, public safety specialists have advised that murder figures may not point to enhanced national security.
Marked Reduction in Per-Day Numbers
There was an mean of close to 55 killings a day in the month of November as opposed to nearly 87 when the President began the presidency in the previous September. This information was provided by the head of the country’s federal safety agency, Marcela Figueroa Franco, during the president’s daily news conference on Tuesday.
“The figures in killings that we’ve had in these past months is very significant,” Sheinbaum said, explaining that in November the least amount of murders were documented for any November in the last decade.
Recent Context and Official Plan
Fierce drug cartel infighting, coupled with the government’s heavily militarised campaigns to confront the cartels, have made Mexico’s homicide rate soar in recent times. The figure peaked at a record high of 36,773 homicides in 2020, according to the country’s national statistics office.
That resulted in Mexico a homicide rate more than four times higher than the United States. Since then, killings have been on the decrease, declining to 33,550 last year. Sheinbaum has attributed her public safety approach for an ostensibly steeper reduction in homicides in the current year.
At a news briefing in the summer, the President declared: “There is a strategy, there is oversight of the plan, and we have specific tracking locality by locality in some cases. The strategy functions. And we have to keep working at it daily.”
The main elements of Sheinbaum’s safety strategy encompass:
- Reinforcing Mexico’s domestic security force.
- Improving information gathering and investigation efforts.
- Enhanced coordination between various departments.
Analyst Warnings and Statistical Limitations
However, public safety experts warned that relying on homicide data to draw a conclusion of peace was flawed. This is especially true in light of the rise in other criminal activities such as people going missing.
“It would be positive information if this was a decrease, but I think we must not just look at the homicide data and conclude: ‘Well then, excellent,’” commented Cecilia Farfán-Méndez, an expert on Mexico's criminal organizations. “I would be tentatively positive.”
As reported by the policy analysis thinktank Mexico Evalúa, murders in total dropped by more than 20% in the first 10 months of this year relative to the identical timeframe last year. But, missing persons cases have gone up by 15% and in certain regions have increased by as much as 200%.
“Statistics on homicides is not useful for estimating the situation of public insecurity,” stated Armando Vargas, a safety expert at Mexico Evalúa. “First, we have law enforcement and investigators who do not have the ability or the will to accurately identify and classify bodies. Secondly, organized [criminals] … have the means to conceal violent acts through disappearances.”
Vargas noted that relying on month-to-month means of daily homicides was similarly an issue because it could obscure periods when there were especially elevated numbers of killings.
“Relying on the per-day mean renders high peaks of violent crime unseen,” he said.
Detentions and Confiscations as Measures of Progress
An area where the administration can point to the success of its safety strategy is on arrests and seizures. Close to 40,000 people were arrested between last October and November 2025 for serious crimes, according to official figures. Over 20,000 firearms were taken and 311 tons of narcotics intercepted.
“Trump cannot claim President Sheinbaum of not acting, because the reality is she is accomplishing a lot with these many thousands of detentions, thousands of seizures, and all the tactical weakening of criminal groups. It’s highly politically beneficial,” said Vargas.
Ongoing Unrest and Societal Anger
Yet despite these efforts, Mexico remains grappling with extreme bloodshed, with several regions in the grip of cartel-fueled bloodshed. Recently there was a prominent assassination of a popular local official in the region of Michoacan, among 10 local leaders assassinated in the past year.
A short time after, thousands of young people took to the streets in the capital and across the country to show their anger at graft and cartel violence.
“The government shares [data] in a manner to create a narrative of security. Politically it’s highly effective, socially it’s highly problematic,” Vargas said.