Everyday Homicides in the nation Drop 37% In President Sheinbaum, According to Government Data

The average count of per-day murders per month in the country has fallen by thirty-seven percent since President Claudia Sheinbaum assumed power, per fresh government figures. Nevertheless, public safety specialists have advised that homicide data may not signal improved national safety.

Significant Decline in Daily Averages

There was an mean of nearly 55 murders a day in last November compared with nearly 87 when the President took the leadership in the previous September. This data was provided by the director of the nation's federal public security agency, Marcela Figueroa Franco, during the leader's daily press briefing on a recent Tuesday.

“The outcome in murders that we have seen over these past months is remarkably significant,” the President remarked, adding that in November the lowest figure of murders were registered for any November in the last 10 years.

Recent Background and Government Strategy

Intense cartel internal conflicts, coupled with the administration's heavily military campaigns to take on the drug gangs, have made Mexico’s murder numbers soar in the past few years. The figure reached a record high of 36,773 killings in 2020, per the country’s official data agency.

That gave Mexico a murder figure over four times higher than the United States. From that point, killings have been on the decrease, dropping to 33,550 in the last calendar year. Claudia Sheinbaum has credited her public safety plan for an ostensibly steeper reduction in homicides in the current year.

At a media briefing in August, the President stated: “There is a plan, there is oversight of the strategy, and we have specific monitoring town by town in certain cases. The approach is effective. And we have to continue working at it each day.”

The central components of Sheinbaum’s safety plan include:

• Strengthening Mexico’s domestic security force.
• Enhancing intelligence and investigation efforts.
• Enhanced coordination between government agencies.

Analyst Caution and Statistical Limitations

Nevertheless, security analysts cautioned that focusing solely on homicide statistics to paint a picture of peace was problematic. This is particularly true considering the uptick in different criminal activities such as abductions.

“This would be positive information if this were a drop, but I think we can’t just look at the murder data and conclude: ‘Oh well, great,’” said Cecilia Farfán-Méndez, an expert on Mexican cartels. “I would be cautiously optimistic.”

According to the policy analysis organization Mexico Evalúa, murders overall declined by more than 20% in the initial 10 months of this year versus the identical period last year. However, disappearances have increased by 15% and in some regions have surged by as much as 200%.

“Numbers on murders is no longer useful for estimating the situation of public insecurity,” said Armando Vargas, a safety analyst at Mexico Evalúa. “Firstly, we have police and investigators who do not have the capacity or the desire to properly recognize and classify bodies. Second, organised [criminals] … have the ability to hide violence through disappearances.”

Vargas added that using month-to-month averages of daily killings was similarly problematic because it might mask periods when there were particularly high levels of killings.

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

Arrests and Confiscations as Metrics of Success

Where the government can point to the success of its security plan is on detentions and confiscations. Close to 40,000 people were apprehended between last October and November 2025 for high-impact crimes, per official data. More than 20,000 guns were seized and 311 tonnes of drugs seized.

“The former US president can't accuse President Sheinbaum of not acting, because the reality is she is accomplishing a lot with these many thousands of detentions, many thousands of seizures, and all the tactical weakening of criminal groups. It’s very in political terms beneficial,” commented Vargas.

Persistent Unrest and Public Anger

However notwithstanding these actions, Mexico remains grappling with extreme bloodshed, with several states in the throes of cartel-related violence. In the previous month there was a high-profile killing of a popular local official in the region of Michoacan, among 10 local leaders killed in the past year.

Weeks later, many thousands of young people demonstrated in Mexico City and across the nation to express their outrage at corruption and cartel violence.

“The federal government presents [data] in a manner to construct a story of improvement. Politically it’s very successful, socially it’s highly debatable,” Vargas remarked.