Day-to-Day Killings in Mexico Fall 37% In President Sheinbaum, Per Official Figures

The mean count of everyday homicides per month in Mexico has fallen by 37% since President Claudia Sheinbaum took office, according to new official figures. But, security experts have cautioned that murder figures could fail to signal improved countrywide safety.

Significant Drop in Daily Averages

There was an mean of nearly 55 killings a day in November as opposed to nearly 87 when Sheinbaum began the presidency in September. This announcement was shared by the chief of the country’s national safety agency, Marcela Figueroa Franco, during the president’s daily press briefing on a recent Tuesday.

“The outcome in homicides that we have seen over these past months is extremely significant,” the President remarked, adding that last month the smallest amount of murders were recorded for any November in the last 10 years.

Recent Context and Government Strategy

Intense organized crime rivalries, alongside the government’s highly military efforts to confront the trafficking organizations, have made Mexico’s murder rate escalate in the past few years. The figure peaked at a maximum of 36,773 killings in 2020, as reported by the country’s national statistics agency.

That meant Mexico a homicide figure over 4x greater than that of the United States. However, killings have been on the decline, falling to 33,550 in the last calendar year. Sheinbaum has linked her national security plan for an ostensibly steeper reduction in homicides in the current year.

At a media briefing in the summer, the President stated: “We have a plan, we have oversight of the strategy, and we have detailed tracking town by town in certain cases. The strategy works. And we have to persist at it daily.”

The key components of Sheinbaum’s safety plan involve:

• Strengthening Mexico’s national guard.
• Advancing information gathering and investigative capabilities.
• Enhanced cooperation between government agencies.

Expert Caution and Statistical Limitations

Nevertheless, public safety experts warned that focusing solely on murder numbers to draw a conclusion of pacification was flawed. This is notably true considering the increase in other criminal activities such as forced disappearances.

“That would be very good information if this was a decrease, but I think we can’t just focus on the homicide numbers and say: ‘Alright, excellent,’” said Cecilia Farfán-Méndez, an specialist on Mexican criminal organizations. “I would be guardedly hopeful.”

As reported by the policy research organization Mexico Evalúa, killings in total fell by more than 20% in the first 10 months of this year versus the same timeframe the previous year. But, disappearances have risen by 15% and in certain regions have risen by as much as 200%.

“Numbers on murders is not useful for gauging the context of public insecurity,” stated Armando Vargas, a security expert at Mexico Evalúa. “First, we have law enforcement and prosecutors who lack the ability or the inclination to accurately identify and categorize corpses. Second, organized [criminals] … have the capability to mask violence through abductions.”

Vargas noted that using monthly means of everyday homicides was similarly an issue because it could obscure days when there were particularly high levels of killings.

“Using the daily mean makes high peaks of violent crime unseen,” he stated.

Detentions and Confiscations as Measures of Success

An area where the government can point to the success of its security strategy is on arrests and seizures. Almost 40,000 individuals were detained between last October and November 2025 for serious offenses, per government figures. Over 20,000 weapons were confiscated and 311 tonnes of drugs confiscated.

“Trump can't claim President Sheinbaum of inaction, because actually she is doing a lot with these many thousands of arrests, thousands of seizures, and all the operational degrading of organised crime. It’s highly in political terms advantageous,” said Vargas.

Persistent Unrest and Public Frustration

Yet notwithstanding these actions, Mexico remains grappling with high bloodshed, with a number of regions in the throes of cartel-related bloodshed. Recently there was a prominent murder of a well-liked mayor in the state of Michoacan, among 10 local leaders murdered in the past year.

Weeks later, many thousands of young people protested in the capital and throughout the country to express their outrage at graft and drug violence.

“The government presents [data] in a manner to construct a story of improvement. Politically it’s extremely successful, socially it’s very debatable,” the analyst said.