Daily Murders in Mexico Fall 37% During the Sheinbaum Administration, Per Official Figures
The mean figure of daily murders monthly in the country has dropped by 37% since President Claudia Sheinbaum began her term, according to fresh official data. But, public safety specialists have advised that homicide data could fail to signal better national safety.
Marked Drop in Daily Figures
There was an mean of close to 55 murders a day in the month of November compared with nearly 87 when Sheinbaum began the leadership in the previous September. This announcement was shared by the chief of the country’s federal safety agency, Marcela Figueroa Franco, during the leader's regular press briefing on a recent Tuesday.
“The figures in killings that we’ve had over these past months is extremely important,” Sheinbaum remarked, explaining that last month the lowest amount of murders were documented for any single November in the past decade.
Historical Context and Official Plan
Fierce cartel infighting, alongside the government’s heavily military efforts to take on the drug gangs, have made Mexico’s homicide numbers rise sharply in recent years. The figure peaked at a record high of 36,773 homicides in 2020, per the nation's national statistics agency.
That gave Mexico a homicide rate more than 4x higher than that of the United States. Since then, homicides have been on the decline, dropping to 33,550 last year. Claudia Sheinbaum has attributed her public safety strategy for an seemingly steeper reduction in killings this year.
At a news briefing in the summer, the President stated: “We have a plan, we have oversight of the plan, and we have specific monitoring municipality by municipality in certain cases. The plan functions. And we have to continue working at it each day.”
The central components of Sheinbaum’s security strategy encompass:
- Reinforcing Mexico’s domestic security force.
- Improving information gathering and investigative work.
- Greater cooperation between various authorities.
Expert Warnings and Data Limitations
However, security experts urged caution that focusing solely on murder numbers to assess the situation of peace was flawed. This is especially true given the uptick in other crimes such as forced disappearances.
“It would be very good news if this were a reduction, but I think we can’t just look at the homicide data and think: ‘Well then, excellent,’” commented Cecilia Farfán-Méndez, an authority on Mexican criminal organizations. “I would be cautiously hopeful.”
Per the policy research thinktank Mexico Evalúa, killings overall fell by over 20% in the first 10 months of the current year versus the identical timeframe the previous year. However, missing persons cases have increased by 15% and in certain regions have risen by up to 200%.
“Numbers on murders is no longer useful for assessing the context of insecurity,” argued Armando Vargas, a security analyst at Mexico Evalúa. “Firstly, we have law enforcement and investigators who lack the ability or the will to correctly identify and classify remains. Second, organised [criminals] … have the capability to mask violence through disappearances.”
Vargas added that using month-to-month means of daily homicides was also problematic because it may obscure days when there were especially high numbers of murders.
“Employing the per-day average renders spikes of violence unseen,” he said.
Arrests and Confiscations as Metrics of Success
Where the administration can highlight the effectiveness of its safety plan is on arrests and seizures. Close to 40,000 individuals were detained between last October and November 2025 for serious offenses, per government figures. More than 20,000 firearms were taken and 311 tons of drugs confiscated.
“Donald Trump cannot accuse President Sheinbaum of not acting, because in reality she is doing a lot with these thousands of arrests, thousands of seizures, and all the operational degrading of criminal groups. It’s very in political terms advantageous,” said Vargas.
Ongoing Violence and Public Frustration
Yet despite these measures, Mexico is still grappling with severe bloodshed, with a number of states in the throes of cartel-related bloodshed. In the previous month there was a high-profile assassination of a popular mayor in the state of Michoacan, among 10 mayors assassinated in the last 12 months.
A short time after, many thousands of youth demonstrated in the capital and across the nation to voice their frustration at graft and cartel violence.
“The government frames [data] in a way to construct a picture of safety. From a political standpoint it’s very potent, from a social perspective it’s very questionable,” Vargas said.