Day-to-Day Murders in the nation Drop Thirty-Seven Percent Under President Sheinbaum, According to Government Figures
The average figure of everyday murders per month in the country has dropped by thirty-seven percent since President Claudia Sheinbaum took office, per recent official statistics. Nevertheless, public safety analysts have advised that murder numbers might not signal better national safety.
Notable Decline in Per-Day Figures
There was an mean of almost 55 homicides a day in November compared with roughly 87 when the President took the presidency in September. This information was provided by the head of the country’s national public security system, Marcela Figueroa Franco, during the leader's regular news conference on Tuesday.
“The outcome in homicides that we’ve had over these months is very significant,” Sheinbaum said, noting that last month the least amount of homicides were registered for any single November in the past 10 years.
Recent Background and Government Strategy
Fierce organized crime infighting, combined with the government’s highly militarised campaigns to combat the drug gangs, have caused Mexico’s homicide numbers escalate in the past few years. The figure reached a maximum of 36,773 killings in 2020, according to the nation's national statistics office.
That gave Mexico a homicide rate more than 4x greater than the US. Since then, killings have been on the decrease, dropping to 33,550 the previous year. Sheinbaum has credited her public safety approach for an ostensibly more pronounced drop in killings in the current year.
At a press conference in August, the President said: “There is a plan, there is oversight of the strategy, and we have specific tracking town by town in some cases. The plan works. And we have to persist at it each day.”
The central elements of Sheinbaum’s security strategy involve:
- Reinforcing Mexico’s federal guard.
- Advancing information gathering and investigation work.
- Enhanced coordination between government authorities.
Expert Warnings and Data Concerns
But, security researchers urged caution that using homicide statistics to paint a picture of peace was misleading. This is especially true given the rise in other criminal activities such as people going missing.
“That would be excellent information if this were a decrease, but I think we must not just look at the homicide data and think: ‘Alright, great,’” said Cecilia Farfán-Méndez, an specialist on Mexican criminal organizations. “I would be tentatively hopeful.”
As reported by the policy research thinktank Mexico Evalúa, homicides in total fell by more than 20% in the initial 10 months of the current year relative to the same period the previous year. However, disappearances have risen by 15% and in certain regions have risen by as much as 200%.
“Statistics on murders is not useful for estimating the reality of insecurity,” argued Armando Vargas, a safety expert at Mexico Evalúa. “First, we have police and investigators who lack the resources or the inclination to properly recognize and categorize bodies. Second, organised [criminals] … have the capability to mask violent acts through disappearances.”
Vargas pointed out that using month-to-month means of everyday homicides was similarly problematic because it might hide days when there were notably elevated levels of killings.
“Using the per-day mean renders spikes of violence unseen,” he said.
Detentions and Confiscations as Metrics of Success
An area where the administration can point to the effectiveness of its security strategy is on arrests and confiscations. Almost 40,000 individuals were apprehended between last October and this past November for major crimes, per government figures. Over 20,000 weapons were seized and 311 tonnes of drugs seized.
“The former US president cannot accuse President Sheinbaum of not acting, because in reality she is accomplishing a lot with these many thousands of arrests, thousands of confiscations, and all the operational weakening of organised crime. It’s highly in political terms advantageous,” commented Vargas.
Ongoing Unrest and Public Anger
But in spite of these efforts, Mexico continues to be beset by severe violence, with a number of regions in the midst of cartel-driven violence. In the previous month there was a notable murder of a popular local official in the state of Michoacan, among 10 local leaders assassinated in the past year.
Weeks later, many thousands of youth demonstrated in Mexico City and across the nation to express their outrage at graft and drug violence.
“The federal government frames [data] in a manner to build a narrative of improvement. Politically it’s highly effective, from a social perspective it’s very questionable,” the analyst remarked.