Data Games Cloud Mexico’s Murder Drop

Map of North America with a flag of Mexico pinned on it

Mexico’s president says murders have nearly been cut in half in less than two years, but the fight over whose numbers to trust shows just how hard it has become to know what is really happening inside modern governments.

Story Snapshot

Mexico’s government claims a roughly 40–46% drop in daily homicides since late 2024, calling it “historic.”
Independent analysts using the same official data calculate a much smaller national decline of about 21–30%.
Most Mexican states show fewer murders, but violence and disappearances remain high and uneven across the country.
Long‑standing problems with Mexico’s crime data fuel doubts that echo American worries about a distant “deep state.”

What Sheinbaum’s Government Is Claiming

President Claudia Sheinbaum is telling Mexicans and foreign partners, including the Trump administration, that her security plan is driving a sharp fall in murders. Government figures show the daily average of homicides dropping from 86.9 in September 2024 to around 52.4 in December 2025, a cut of nearly 40%. Officials say December 2025 had the lowest murder level since 2016 and that the 2025 national rate was about 17.5 per 100,000 people, reportedly the lowest since 2015.

Mexico’s public security secretariat also says 26 of 32 states reduced intentional homicides in 2025, with some seeing very steep drops. Zacatecas is reported to have cut murders by over 70%, while Nuevo León and several others posted reductions above 50%. Even some of the country’s most violent states, like Guanajuato and Baja California, show double‑digit declines, which the government presents as proof that its national security strategy is working and spreading beyond a few showcase regions.

How Independent Numbers Paint a More Modest Picture

Outside analysts who dig into the same homicide figures see improvement, but not a miracle. The data site Latinometrics calculates that Mexico had 23,609 homicide victims in 2025, down from 30,060 in 2024, a decline of about 21.5% rather than 40–46%. Mexico News Daily, working from a separate government presentation, finds the average number of homicides per day fell about 30% in 2025 compared with 2024, again well below the headline claims.

Mexico’s official statistics agency, the National Institute of Statistics and Geography, adds another layer of caution. In a 2026 bulletin on “Deaths by Homicide,” the institute reports only a 12.7% drop in the homicide rate for the first half of 2025 compared with the same period in 2024, far from a cut in half. Human Rights Watch’s country reports describe a slow national decline in murders since 2020 but stress that the overall homicide level remains very high, and disappearances are still rising. Together, these sources suggest real progress, yet not the dramatic collapse in violence that political speeches highlight.

Why Crime Data From Mexico Is So Hard To Trust

The argument over whether killings have “halved” fits a long pattern that worries many Americans watching from across the border. A 2025 report from Insight Crime says one of Mexico’s main crime data systems is “riddled with errors,” warning that past murder statistics have often been wrong by wide margins. Journalists and researchers note that figures presented by security officials are usually labeled “preliminary” and sometimes get revised later, but the splashy claims made at press events are rarely updated with quiet corrections.

Critics also point out how numbers can be shaped to look better. The government’s biggest percentage drops come from comparing later months to September 2024, which was itself an unusually deadly peak. Using that high point as the starting line makes the trend seem steeper than if officials used full‑year averages or longer time frames. Over the years, Mexican administrations of all parties have faced accusations of reclassifying crimes, under‑counting victims, or focusing on narrow metrics that favor their narrative, fueling a sense that the “system” protects itself before it protects citizens.

Real Gains, Ongoing Violence, And Shared Public Frustration

Even with these doubts, several things are clear. Murders in Mexico are falling from the extreme levels of the past decade, and most states now report fewer killings than a few years ago. At the same time, the national homicide rate still sits near historic highs, and large parts of the country remain under heavy pressure from organized crime. Reports from human rights groups warn that disappearances and impunity are rising, meaning many families never see justice even when official charts claim “progress.”

For Americans on both the right and the left, Mexico’s homicide math feels familiar. People see leaders stand in front of graphs, declare victory, and then ask citizens to “trust the data” even when experts say the numbers are messy or incomplete. In the United States, many already believe a distant “deep state” uses statistics to defend its own power. Watching another government push glowing safety claims built on preliminary figures and shifting baselines only deepens that worry that those at the top — in Washington or Mexico City — are more focused on spin than on fixing the conditions that make everyday life dangerous for ordinary people.