Daily Homicides in the nation Drop Thirty-Seven Percent During Claudia Sheinbaum, According to Government Data

The mean figure of daily murders each month in the country has decreased by more than a third since Head of State Claudia Sheinbaum assumed power, according to fresh administrative figures. However, public safety experts have advised that murder numbers could fail to indicate improved countrywide stability.

Notable Drop in Daily Figures

Officials reported an mean of nearly 55 murders a day in last November versus nearly 87 when Claudia Sheinbaum assumed the presidential office in the previous September. This data was delivered by the director of the nation's national public security system, Marcela Figueroa Franco, during the leader's regular news conference on Tuesday.

“The outcome in killings that have been recorded over these past months is extremely significant,” the President stated, explaining that the previous month the smallest number of murders were recorded for any November in the last 10 years.

Recent Background and Government Strategy

Intense organized crime rivalries, coupled with the administration's heavily military efforts to take on the cartels, have caused Mexico’s homicide rate rise sharply in recent years. The figure hit a peak of 36,773 homicides in 2020, according to the country’s official data agency.

That gave Mexico a murder figure over 4x greater than that of the United States. However, murders have been on the decrease, falling to 33,550 the previous year. Claudia Sheinbaum has attributed her public safety strategy for an apparently more pronounced reduction in killings in the current year.

At a news briefing in August, the Mexican leader stated: “There is a strategy, we have monitoring of the strategy, and there is specific monitoring town by town in some cases. The plan is effective. And we have to persist at it each day.”

The main elements of the President's security strategy involve:

• Reinforcing Mexico’s federal guard.
• Improving information gathering and investigation efforts.
• Enhanced coordination between government agencies.

Analyst Caution and Data Limitations

But, security researchers warned that using murder data to assess the situation of peace was misleading. This is especially true considering the uptick in different criminal activities such as people going missing.

“It would be excellent news if this was a decrease, but I think we shouldn't just concentrate on the murder data and say: ‘Alright, good,’” stated Cecilia Farfán-Méndez, an specialist on Mexico's criminal organizations. “I would be cautiously positive.”

Per the public policy research organization Mexico Evalúa, homicides overall dropped by more than 20% in the first 10 months of this year relative to the same timeframe last year. Yet, disappearances have risen by 15% and in some regions have surged by up to 200%.

“Data on murders is no longer valid for assessing the context of insecurity,” stated Armando Vargas, a safety analyst at Mexico Evalúa. “First, we have police and investigators who do not have the resources or the will to properly recognize and categorize bodies. Second, organized [criminals] … have the means to hide violence through disappearances.”

Vargas pointed out that using month-to-month means of daily killings was additionally an issue because it could obscure periods when there were especially elevated numbers of killings.

“Relying on the per-day average makes spikes of violent crime less visible,” he stated.

Detentions and Confiscations as Measures of Success

Where the government can point to the success of its security plan is on arrests and confiscations. Almost 40,000 suspects were detained between last October and this past November for serious crimes, per official data. More than 20,000 guns were taken and 311 tonnes of drugs intercepted.

“Donald Trump cannot claim President Sheinbaum of not acting, because in reality she is doing a lot with these many thousands of arrests, many thousands of seizures, and all the tactical weakening of organised crime. It’s highly in political terms advantageous,” said Vargas.

Persistent Unrest and Societal Anger

Yet notwithstanding these efforts, Mexico remains plagued by severe violence, with multiple states in the throes of cartel-driven violence. Last month there was a prominent killing of a popular local official in the region of Michoacan, among 10 mayors murdered in the last year.

Weeks after, thousands of protesters took to the streets in the capital and across the nation to express their outrage at graft and cartel violence.

“The government frames [data] in a way to build a narrative of improvement. Politically it’s highly effective, from a social perspective it’s very problematic,” the analyst remarked.