Daily Homicides in the nation Drop 37% Under Claudia Sheinbaum, According to Government Data

The mean count of per-day murders monthly in the country has dropped by thirty-seven percent since President Claudia Sheinbaum took office, as stated by fresh official figures. However, public safety specialists have cautioned that murder numbers could fail to indicate better national security.

Notable Decline in Daily Averages

Officials reported an average of close to 55 homicides a day in last November versus nearly 87 when the President began the presidential office in September. This data was shared by the head of the country’s federal safety agency, Marcela Figueroa Franco, during the leader's regular press briefing on Tuesday.

“The result in homicides that we have seen over these past months is very important,” the President remarked, noting that the previous month the least figure of murders were registered for any November in the past 10 years.

Historical Context and Official Plan

Fierce drug cartel rivalries, alongside the government’s highly military campaigns to combat the drug gangs, have made Mexico’s murder numbers soar in recent times. The figure hit a maximum of 36,773 homicides in 2020, according to the country’s official data office.

That meant Mexico a murder rate over 4x higher than the United States. Since then, murders have been on the downward trend, declining to 33,550 in the last calendar year. Sheinbaum has attributed her national security plan for an apparently steeper drop in killings this year.

At a media briefing in the summer, the Mexican leader said: “We have a plan, there is oversight of the strategy, and there is detailed tracking locality by locality in certain cases. The plan is effective. And we have to keep working at it daily.”

The central pillars of the President's security strategy involve:

• Strengthening Mexico’s national guard.
• Advancing intelligence and investigation capabilities.
• Greater cooperation between government departments.

Analyst Warnings and Statistical Limitations

But, public safety experts urged caution that relying on homicide statistics to paint a picture of peace was misleading. This is notably true given the increase in different criminal activities such as forced disappearances.

“This would be excellent information if this was a reduction, but I think we must not just focus on the murder data and say: ‘Alright, good,’” said Cecilia Farfán-Méndez, an expert on Mexico's criminal organizations. “I would be guardedly positive.”

As reported by the policy research organization Mexico Evalúa, killings in total declined by more than 20% in the first 10 months of this year relative to the same timeframe last year. Yet, missing persons cases have increased by 15% and in some regions have increased by up to 200%.

“Statistics on murders is not useful for estimating the situation of violence,” stated Armando Vargas, a safety analyst at Mexico Evalúa. “Firstly, we have law enforcement and prosecutors who do not have the ability or the will to correctly identify and categorize corpses. Secondly, organised [criminals] … have the capability to hide violence through abductions.”

Vargas noted that relying on monthly averages of daily homicides was additionally problematic because it might obscure periods when there were especially high levels of murders.

“Relying on the per-day mean renders spikes of violence invisible,” he said.

Arrests and Confiscations as Metrics of Progress

An area where the government can cite the effectiveness of its security plan is on arrests and confiscations. Almost 40,000 suspects were detained between last October and this past November for high-impact crimes, per government data. More than 20,000 weapons were taken and 311 tons of narcotics intercepted.

“Donald 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 confiscations, and all the tactical degrading of criminal groups. It’s extremely politically advantageous,” stated Vargas.

Ongoing Unrest and Public Anger

But notwithstanding these actions, Mexico is still beset by extreme bloodshed, with multiple states in the grip of cartel-related conflict. In the previous month there was a high-profile murder of a popular local official in the state of Michoacan, one of 10 local leaders killed in the last year.

Weeks later, many thousands of protesters demonstrated in the capital and throughout the country to express their frustration at corruption and cartel violence.

“The administration presents [data] in a manner to create a narrative of security. Politically it’s extremely effective, from a social perspective it’s very questionable,” Vargas remarked.