Day-to-Day Homicides in Mexico Drop Over a Third In Claudia Sheinbaum, As per Government Figures

The typical count of everyday homicides monthly in Mexico has dropped by more than a third since President Claudia Sheinbaum assumed power, as stated by new administrative figures. However, public safety experts have advised that murder numbers may not indicate better national stability.

Significant Drop in Per-Day Numbers

There was an average of nearly 55 homicides a day in November as opposed to roughly 87 when Sheinbaum began the presidency in September of last year. This information was delivered by the chief of the nation's federal public security agency, Marcela Figueroa Franco, during the leader's daily press briefing on Tuesday.

“The outcome in killings that have been recorded in these months is very significant,” Sheinbaum said, noting that in November the lowest number of murders were documented for any single November in the past 10 years.

Recent Background and Official Strategy

Violent cartel internal conflicts, alongside the government’s highly militarised campaigns to combat the drug gangs, have led to Mexico’s murder numbers rise sharply in the past few years. The figure reached a peak of 36,773 homicides in 2020, per the country’s national statistics agency.

That gave Mexico a murder figure more than four times higher than that of the United States. From that point, homicides have been on the decline, falling to 33,550 in the last calendar year. The President has attributed her national security strategy for an ostensibly sharper drop in killings this year.

At a media briefing in August, the Mexican leader stated: “There is a plan, there is tracking of the plan, and there is detailed tracking town by town in some cases. The plan is effective. And we have to keep working at it each day.”

The key elements of Sheinbaum’s safety plan include:

• Strengthening Mexico’s domestic security force.
• Improving intelligence and investigation work.
• Greater collaboration between government departments.

Expert Caution and Data Limitations

But, public safety analysts warned that focusing solely on homicide data to assess the situation of pacification was misleading. This is particularly true given the increase in different criminal activities such as forced disappearances.

“That would be positive information if this was a drop, but I think we must not just look at the murder data and conclude: ‘Oh well, excellent,’” commented Cecilia Farfán-Méndez, an specialist on Mexico's cartels. “I would be tentatively hopeful.”

According to the public policy analysis organization Mexico Evalúa, homicides in total fell by over 20% in the initial 10 months of this year versus the identical timeframe the previous year. Yet, missing persons cases have increased by 15% and in some regions have surged by as much as 200%.

“Data on murders is not useful for gauging the reality of public insecurity,” argued Armando Vargas, a safety analyst at Mexico Evalúa. “Firstly, we have police and investigators who lack the capacity or the inclination to correctly identify and classify corpses. Secondly, organized [criminals] … have the capability to hide violence through abductions.”

Vargas added that using monthly means of everyday killings was additionally concerning because it might obscure periods when there were notably elevated numbers of killings.

“Employing the per-day average makes high peaks of violent crime invisible,” he concluded.

Detentions and Seizures as Metrics of Progress

An area where the administration can highlight the success of its security plan is on detentions and confiscations. Close to 40,000 suspects were apprehended between last October and this past November for high-impact crimes, per government data. More than 20,000 guns were taken and 311 tons of narcotics seized.

“Donald Trump can't claim President Sheinbaum of inaction, because the reality is she is doing a lot with these thousands of detentions, many thousands of seizures, and all the operational degrading of criminal groups. It’s extremely in political terms advantageous,” commented Vargas.

Ongoing Violence and Societal Anger

Yet despite these actions, Mexico is still plagued by severe bloodshed, with a number of states in the grip of cartel-driven violence. Recently there was a prominent assassination of a popular local official in the state of Michoacan, among 10 mayors killed in the past year.

A short time after, many thousands of young people protested in the capital and throughout the country to voice their anger at corruption and narco-violence.

“The government presents [data] in a manner to build a story of improvement. Politically it’s extremely effective, socially it’s highly questionable,” the analyst concluded.