Everyday Homicides in Mexico Drop 37% In the Sheinbaum Administration, Per Official Data

The mean number of everyday homicides each month in the country has fallen by more than a third since Head of State Claudia Sheinbaum assumed power, per new official statistics. But, security experts have advised that homicide numbers could fail to indicate enhanced countrywide safety.

Marked Reduction in Daily Averages

Officials reported an mean of close to 55 murders a day in the month of November as opposed to nearly 87 when Claudia Sheinbaum began the presidency in September of last year. This announcement was delivered by the director of the country’s national public security system, Marcela Figueroa Franco, during the leader's daily press briefing on Tuesday.

“The figures in murders that we’ve had during these past months is extremely important,” Sheinbaum stated, explaining that the previous month the least amount of homicides were recorded for any single November in the last 10 years.

Historical Context and Official Strategy

Intense organized crime internal conflicts, alongside the government’s heavily military campaigns to combat the drug gangs, have led to Mexico’s murder numbers soar in the past few years. The figure reached a maximum of 36,773 killings in 2020, per the nation's national statistics agency.

That resulted in Mexico a homicide rate over 4x greater than the United States. Since then, homicides have been on the decline, dropping to 33,550 the previous year. Claudia Sheinbaum has linked her national security approach for an apparently steeper reduction in homicides this year.

At a press conference in the summer, the head of state said: “There is a strategy, we have monitoring of the strategy, and we have detailed tracking locality by locality in certain cases. The plan works. And we have to keep working at it every day.”

The main pillars of Sheinbaum’s safety strategy encompass:

• Reinforcing Mexico’s national guard.
• Improving intelligence and investigative capabilities.
• Greater cooperation between various departments.

Analyst Warnings and Statistical Concerns

But, security researchers warned that focusing solely on murder statistics to draw a conclusion of peace was flawed. This is especially true in light of the increase in other crimes such as forced disappearances.

“That would be excellent information if this was a reduction, but I think we must not just focus on the murder data and think: ‘Alright, good,’” commented Cecilia Farfán-Méndez, an expert on Mexican criminal organizations. “I would be tentatively hopeful.”

According to the public policy research thinktank Mexico Evalúa, killings in total dropped by over 20% in the initial 10 months of this year versus the same timeframe the previous year. Yet, disappearances have gone up by 15% and in some states have increased by as much as 200%.

“Data on homicides is not valid for estimating the situation of violence,” argued Armando Vargas, a safety expert at Mexico Evalúa. “Firstly, we have police and prosecutors who lack the capacity or the will to properly identify and categorize corpses. Secondly, organized [criminals] … have the ability to mask violent acts through abductions.”

Vargas added that using monthly means of daily killings was also problematic because it could mask periods when there were notably spiking levels of killings.

“Employing the per-day mean makes surges of violence unseen,” he concluded.

Arrests and Seizures as Measures of Progress

Where the government can point to the success of its security strategy is on detentions and seizures. Almost 40,000 people were detained between last October and November 2025 for serious crimes, according to government data. More than 20,000 firearms were taken and 311 tonnes of narcotics confiscated.

“The former US president can't claim President Sheinbaum of not acting, because the reality is she is accomplishing a lot with these thousands of arrests, many thousands of confiscations, and all the operational degrading of criminal groups. It’s highly politically advantageous,” commented Vargas.

Ongoing Unrest and Public Frustration

However in spite of these actions, Mexico remains beset by high violence, with multiple regions in the grip of cartel-driven bloodshed. Recently there was a prominent killing of a popular local official in the region of Michoacan, among 10 mayors killed in the past 12 months.

Weeks later, many thousands of youth protested in the capital and across the country to show their anger at graft and narco-violence.

“The government frames [data] in a way to create a narrative of improvement. Politically it’s highly potent, socially it’s highly debatable,” Vargas remarked.