Everyday Murders in Mexico Drop 37% Under the Sheinbaum Administration, As per Government Statistics
The mean count of daily homicides monthly in Mexico has decreased by 37% since Head of State Claudia Sheinbaum took office, per new government data. However, security experts have advised that homicide numbers might not indicate enhanced countrywide stability.
Significant Decline in Per-Day Numbers
There was an mean of almost 55 killings a day in last November as opposed to almost 87 when Sheinbaum began the leadership in the previous September. This data was delivered by the head of the country’s federal public security system, Marcela Figueroa Franco, during the president’s regular press briefing on a recent Tuesday.
“The result in murders that we’ve had over these past months is remarkably important,” Claudia Sheinbaum stated, noting that the previous month the least figure of homicides were documented for any single November in the last decade.
Recent Background and Official Plan
Fierce organized crime infighting, combined with the administration's heavily military campaigns to confront the drug gangs, have caused Mexico’s homicide rate rise sharply in the past few years. The rate hit a maximum of 36,773 homicides in 2020, as reported by the nation's national statistics agency.
That resulted in Mexico a murder rate more than four times greater than the United States. However, killings have been on the decrease, declining to 33,550 last year. The President has credited her public safety strategy for an apparently steeper reduction in killings this year.
At a news briefing in the summer, the President declared: “We have a strategy, we have monitoring of the strategy, and we have detailed tracking municipality by municipality in certain cases. The approach is effective. And we have to continue working at it every day.”
The main pillars of Sheinbaum’s safety strategy encompass:
- Reinforcing Mexico’s federal guard.
- Enhancing intelligence and investigative work.
- Enhanced coordination between various authorities.
Analyst Skepticism and Statistical Limitations
Nevertheless, security analysts urged caution that relying on homicide numbers to draw a conclusion of peace was flawed. This is particularly true given the increase in other criminal activities such as people going missing.
“This would be positive information if this was a drop, but I think we must not just focus on the homicide numbers and say: ‘Well then, great,’” commented Cecilia Farfán-Méndez, an specialist on Mexican cartels. “I would be cautiously hopeful.”
Per the public policy research thinktank Mexico Evalúa, homicides in total dropped by over 20% in the first 10 months of the current year relative to the identical timeframe the previous year. But, missing persons cases have risen by 15% and in certain states have increased by up to 200%.
“Data on murders is no longer reliable for estimating the situation of insecurity,” stated Armando Vargas, a security analyst at Mexico Evalúa. “Firstly, we have law enforcement and investigators who do not have the ability or the will to properly identify and categorize corpses. Secondly, organized [criminals] … have the means to mask violent acts through disappearances.”
Vargas pointed out that using month-to-month means of everyday killings was also problematic because it may mask periods when there were notably spiking numbers of murders.
“Employing the daily average renders high peaks of violence less visible,” he concluded.
Arrests and Confiscations as Measures of Success
An area where the administration can point to the success of its security plan is on detentions and confiscations. Nearly 40,000 individuals were arrested between last October and this past November for major offenses, per government data. Over 20,000 firearms were seized and 311 tons of drugs confiscated.
“Donald Trump can't claim President Sheinbaum of doing nothing, because the reality is she is accomplishing a lot with these many thousands of detentions, thousands of seizures, and all the operational weakening of organised crime. It’s extremely in political terms profitable,” commented Vargas.
Persistent Violence and Societal Anger
However in spite of these actions, Mexico is still plagued by high violence, with multiple regions in the grip of cartel-driven conflict. Recently there was a prominent murder of a popular local official in the region of Michoacan, among 10 local leaders murdered in the past year.
Weeks later, many thousands of young people protested in Mexico City and across the nation to express their anger at corruption and drug violence.
“The federal government frames [data] in a way to construct a story of safety. Politically it’s very potent, from a social perspective it’s highly questionable,” Vargas concluded.