Everyday Homicides in the nation Drop 37% Under President Sheinbaum, According to Official Figures

The typical count of daily killings monthly in the country has decreased by more than a third since Head of State Claudia Sheinbaum took office, as stated by fresh government figures. However, security analysts have advised that homicide numbers might not signal better national security.

Marked Reduction in Per-Day Averages

There was an mean of nearly 55 killings a day in November versus nearly 87 when Claudia Sheinbaum took the presidential office in September. This announcement was shared by the chief of the nation's national public security system, Marcela Figueroa Franco, during the president’s daily press briefing on a recent Tuesday.

“The outcome in homicides that we’ve had over these months is extremely notable,” Sheinbaum remarked, explaining that the previous month the smallest number of murders were documented for any November in the last decade.

Recent Background and Official Strategy

Intense cartel rivalries, coupled with the administration's heavily militarised campaigns to take on the trafficking organizations, have led to Mexico’s homicide rate rise sharply in recent times. The figure reached a record high of 36,773 killings in 2020, as reported by the nation's official data agency.

That resulted in Mexico a murder figure over four times greater than the United States. However, killings have been on the decline, declining to 33,550 in the last calendar year. Sheinbaum has linked her national security strategy for an seemingly sharper decline in homicides in the current year.

At a media briefing in August, the President said: “We have a strategy, we have monitoring of the plan, and there is specific tracking municipality by municipality in some cases. The approach functions. And we have to continue working at it each day.”

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

• Reinforcing Mexico’s national guard.
• Improving intelligence and investigation efforts.
• Greater collaboration between various authorities.

Analyst Caution and Statistical Concerns

But, public safety analysts cautioned that relying on murder data to paint a picture of peace was problematic. This is especially true given the uptick in other crimes such as forced disappearances.

“That would be very good information if this was a decrease, but I think we must not just focus on the murder numbers and think: ‘Oh well, great,’” commented Cecilia Farfán-Méndez, an authority on Mexico's cartels. “I would be guardedly optimistic.”

Per the public policy analysis thinktank Mexico Evalúa, murders overall fell by more than 20% in the first 10 months of this year compared with the identical timeframe last year. Yet, disappearances have increased by 15% and in some states have increased by up to 200%.

“Numbers on murders is no longer useful for estimating the reality of violence,” said Armando Vargas, a safety analyst at Mexico Evalúa. “First, we have law enforcement and investigators who lack the resources or the desire to properly identify and classify corpses. Second, organised [criminals] … have the means to mask violence through abductions.”

Vargas added that using month-to-month averages of daily killings was also problematic because it could obscure periods when there were particularly high levels of murders.

“Using the per-day mean makes surges of violent crime invisible,” he concluded.

Arrests and Confiscations as Measures of Progress

An area where the administration can cite the effectiveness of its security strategy is on detentions and seizures. Nearly 40,000 people were arrested between last October and November 2025 for serious crimes, per official figures. Over 20,000 guns were taken and 311 tonnes of narcotics confiscated.

“The former US president can't accuse President Sheinbaum of doing nothing, because the reality is she is doing a lot with these thousands of arrests, many thousands of seizures, and all the tactical degrading of organised crime. It’s extremely politically advantageous,” commented Vargas.

Persistent Violence and Societal Anger

However in spite of these actions, Mexico continues to be beset by high violence, with multiple regions in the throes of cartel-fueled violence. Recently there was a high-profile killing of a popular mayor in the state of Michoacan, one of 10 mayors assassinated in the last year.

A short time after, thousands of protesters took to the streets 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 construct a picture of safety. From a political standpoint it’s extremely successful, from a social perspective it’s highly questionable,” the analyst concluded.