Everyday Murders in Mexico Drop Over a Third Under President Sheinbaum, According to Official Data

The mean count of everyday murders per month in Mexico has decreased by more than a third since Head of State Claudia Sheinbaum took office, according to recent administrative figures. Nevertheless, public safety experts have warned that murder figures might not point to improved countrywide stability.

Marked Decline in Per-Day Averages

Officials reported an mean of nearly 55 homicides a day in the month of November versus almost 87 when Claudia Sheinbaum began the presidential office in September of last year. This announcement was provided by the director of the country’s national public security agency, Marcela Figueroa Franco, during the president’s regular news conference on Tuesday.

“The figures in killings that have been recorded over these months is very notable,” Sheinbaum remarked, explaining that in November the lowest figure of murders were recorded for any single November in the past decade.

Recent Background and Government Plan

Fierce cartel infighting, coupled with the government’s heavily militarised campaigns to combat the cartels, have led to Mexico’s homicide numbers escalate in recent times. The figure peaked at a peak of 36,773 killings in 2020, as reported by the country’s official data office.

That gave Mexico a murder rate over 4x higher than the United States. Since then, murders have been on the decline, falling to 33,550 last year. The President has linked her public safety approach for an ostensibly steeper decline in killings this year.

At a media briefing in August, the President declared: “There is a strategy, there is monitoring of the plan, and there is detailed tracking municipality by municipality in some cases. The plan works. And we have to continue working at it every day.”

The key pillars of the President's security strategy encompass:

• Reinforcing Mexico’s domestic security force.
• Improving information gathering and investigation efforts.
• Increased collaboration between government authorities.

Analyst Warnings and Statistical Concerns

However, public safety researchers warned that using murder data to paint a picture of peace was flawed. This is particularly true considering the uptick in other crimes such as abductions.

“This would be very good news if this were a drop, but I think we must not just concentrate on the homicide numbers and say: ‘Oh well, excellent,’” commented Cecilia Farfán-Méndez, an expert on Mexico's criminal organizations. “I would be cautiously optimistic.”

As reported by the public policy research organization Mexico Evalúa, homicides in total fell by over 20% in the first 10 months of this year versus the same timeframe last year. But, missing persons cases have gone up by 15% and in certain regions have surged by up to 200%.

“Statistics on murders is not useful for estimating the situation of insecurity,” argued Armando Vargas, a security expert at Mexico Evalúa. “First, we have law enforcement and investigators who do not have the resources or the inclination to correctly recognize and categorize remains. Second, organized [criminals] … have the ability to mask violent acts through disappearances.”

Vargas pointed out that using monthly averages of everyday homicides was similarly concerning because it may hide days when there were notably high levels of killings.

“Employing the daily mean renders high peaks of violence unseen,” he said.

Detentions and Seizures as Measures of Progress

An area where the government can cite the success of its safety plan is on detentions and confiscations. Almost 40,000 people were detained between last October and November 2025 for high-impact crimes, per government figures. More than 20,000 firearms were confiscated and 311 tonnes of drugs confiscated.

“Trump can't accuse President Sheinbaum of not acting, because actually she is accomplishing a lot with these thousands of detentions, thousands of seizures, and all the operational degrading of organised crime. It’s highly politically advantageous,” commented Vargas.

Persistent Unrest and Societal Frustration

Yet notwithstanding these actions, Mexico remains beset by severe bloodshed, with several regions in the midst of cartel-driven conflict. Last month there was a prominent killing of a well-liked local official in the region of Michoacan, one of 10 local leaders killed in the past year.

A short time later, many thousands of protesters protested in the capital and throughout the nation to voice their outrage at graft and narco-violence.

“The federal government frames [data] in a way to build a narrative of improvement. Politically it’s extremely potent, from a social perspective it’s highly problematic,” Vargas remarked.