Day-to-Day Killings in the nation Fall 37% Under Claudia Sheinbaum, According to Official Statistics

The average number of everyday murders each month in Mexico has dropped by more than a third since President Claudia Sheinbaum took office, according to fresh administrative data. However, security specialists have cautioned that murder numbers may not point to enhanced national stability.

Marked Reduction in Daily Figures

Officials reported an average of almost 55 killings a day in last November versus roughly 87 when Claudia Sheinbaum took the leadership in September. This announcement was delivered by the chief of the country’s national public security system, Marcela Figueroa Franco, during the president’s daily news conference on Tuesday.

“The figures in homicides that we’ve had during these past months is extremely significant,” the President remarked, noting that the previous month the lowest amount of homicides were registered for any single November in the past decade.

Recent Context and Official Strategy

Intense drug cartel infighting, alongside the administration's highly military operations to take on the drug gangs, have made Mexico’s murder rate soar in recent times. The rate peaked at a peak of 36,773 homicides in 2020, according to the country’s national statistics agency.

That resulted in Mexico a murder rate more than four times greater than the United States. From that point, killings have been on the decline, dropping to 33,550 in the last calendar year. The President has credited her public safety strategy for an ostensibly steeper drop in killings in the current year.

At a news briefing in August, the head of state declared: “We have a plan, we have monitoring of the plan, and there is detailed monitoring locality by locality in certain cases. The strategy works. And we have to continue working at it every day.”

The central pillars of the President's safety plan encompass:

• Bolstering Mexico’s domestic security force.
• Advancing intelligence and investigation work.
• Greater collaboration between various departments.

Expert Skepticism and Data Limitations

Nevertheless, public safety analysts warned that focusing solely on homicide numbers to assess the situation of peace was misleading. This is especially true given the rise in different criminal activities such as people going missing.

“This would be very good information if this was a decrease, but I think we can’t just focus on the homicide numbers and conclude: ‘Alright, excellent,’” said Cecilia Farfán-Méndez, an specialist on Mexico's cartels. “I would be tentatively hopeful.”

According to the public policy research organization Mexico Evalúa, killings in total dropped by over 20% in the initial 10 months of the current year versus the identical timeframe last year. Yet, missing persons cases have risen by 15% and in some regions have surged by as much as 200%.

“Data on murders is no longer useful for estimating the context of violence,” stated Armando Vargas, a security expert at Mexico Evalúa. “Firstly, we have police and investigators who lack the ability or the will to correctly recognize and classify bodies. Second, organized [criminals] … have the means to hide violent acts through disappearances.”

Vargas added that relying on month-to-month means of everyday homicides was similarly problematic because it may hide periods when there were notably spiking numbers of killings.

“Using the daily average renders high peaks of violence unseen,” he stated.

Detentions and Confiscations as Measures of Progress

An area where the government can highlight the effectiveness of its safety plan is on arrests and confiscations. Close to 40,000 people were arrested between October 2024 and November 2025 for high-impact offenses, per official figures. More than 20,000 guns were seized and 311 tons of drugs seized.

“Donald Trump cannot accuse President Sheinbaum of inaction, because the reality is she is doing a lot with these thousands of arrests, thousands of seizures, and all the operational degrading of criminal groups. It’s very politically beneficial,” stated Vargas.

Persistent Unrest and Public Frustration

But despite these actions, Mexico is still plagued by extreme violence, with a number of states in the grip of cartel-related bloodshed. Last month there was a notable murder of a popular mayor in the state of Michoacan, one of 10 local leaders murdered in the last 12 months.

Weeks after, many thousands of protesters demonstrated in the capital and across the country to show their anger at corruption and drug violence.

“The government presents [data] in a manner to construct a story of security. From a political standpoint it’s very effective, from a social perspective it’s highly questionable,” the analyst said.