New crime (and crime victim) statistics have been released by the SESNSP, the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System. The complete publication, updated through June 30, 2020 is available at this link:

As noted in the Animal Politico article (link posted below): “In the first 6 months of this year, 17,982 people were murdered. On average nearly 100 premeditated murders every day in 2020, the majority of them with firearms. It is an unprecedented level of violence for a first half-year in the country. The victims of homicide and feminicide officially reported in the first six months of this year exceed by more than 300 the 17,653 documented in 2019, which until now was the highest level of violence recorded in the past 25 years.”

Here are the numbers as I have tallied them based on reviewing this SESNSP document each month:

The Mexican government began counting feminicidios as a separate category of victims of homicide who were determined to have been killed “for reasons of gender…”  A total of 17,982 homicidios dolosos (intentional homicides) and feminicidios were recorded January-June 2020–this is an average of 98.8 murders each day in 2020. The statistics show a notable increase (from 73 to 99) feminicidios between May and June 2020. If this level of homicide continues, it is likely that the 2020 death toll may exceed 36,000–the highest number ever recorded in the official Mexican data for these crimes.

The Animal Politico article below details other comparisons that emerge from the statistics which indicate a steady rise in homicides over the past 6 years. Eleven states in Mexico show increases in homicides, lead by Zacatecas and Michoacan in terms of rate of increase in the number of murder victims. In terms of the raw numbers, the increases in Guanajuato, Chihuahua and Michoacan are especially serious since these three states (plus Baja California, Estado de Mexico, and Jalisco) account for 9,193 homicides–more than half of all homicides committed in the country. Of course, this is related to the fact that these states are also large in terms of population. It will be necessary to review the numbers in relation to the populations (murder rate per 100,000) to actually determine which states are overall most violent in terms of homicide.

The Instituto Nacional de Estadistica e Geografia (INEGI) usually releases its homicide data for the past year in July, so we may be able to get an idea of how the states compare in terms of murder rates. To recall, the SESNSP data compiles the number of homicide victims indicated in the homicide investigation files opened by the public prosecutors in each Mexican state. INEGI compiles homicide data based on the determinations of cause of death as indicated by legal medical examinations from the various morgues across the country.  molly molloy

En los primeros seis meses de este año fueron asesinadas 17 mil 982 personas en México. Se trata, en promedio, de casi 100 asesinatos de forma premeditada todos los días en 2020, la mayoría de ellas con armas de fuego. Es un nivel de violencia inédito para un primer semestre en el país.

Full article from Animal Politico at the link:

https://www.animalpolitico.com/2020/07/record-violencia-semestre-2020-asesinatos/

 

According to the latest published homicide data from the Mexican government, there were 3000 intentional homicides and 78 feminicidios from January-March 2020. These are the “Victims of Crime” data published on the 20th of each month. This is the link to the data published on April 20, 2020:

According to this set of data (reported to the SESNSP in the Sec. de Gobernacion by the Fiscalias of the Mexican states) there have been a total of 8585 intentional homicides January-March 2020 and an additional 244 crimes classified as Feminicidios (murders with gender as the motivation).

On average, there are about 97 homicides each day in Mexico, about the same in the first quarter of 2020 as the 2019 average. (posted below).

The SESNSP document entitled: Víctimas de Delitos del Fuero Común: Instrumento para el Registro, Clasificacion y Reporte de Delitos y las Víctimas CNSP /38/15  includes the numbers of crime victims for all of the Mexican states + the national data. According to the description of the data, “The figures refer to the number of victims registered in the investigation files initiated by the Agencies of the Public Ministry and reported by the Attorneys General and Fiscalias of the 32 federal entitites (Mexican states), and these are the offices responsible for the veracity and currency of the data. ” The most current data for January-March 2020 was published on April 20, 2020.

People will certainly be looking for any significant changes in the data that will be published in May (for the months January-April) to determine whether or not the COVID-19 pandemic will have an impact on the overall criminal violence in Mexico, or rather, if there will be an decrease in homicides.

If the monthly figures for Ciudad Juarez are any indication, the city is increasingly violent in April, along with the new death toll from the virus. So far in April, there have been more than 125 murders in the city. According to the official COVID-19 statistics published on the El Diario front page https://diario.mx/  there have been 42 deaths from the virus in Juarez and 1,221 deaths nationally in Mexico.   molly molloy, mollymolloy@gmail.com

The Executive Secretariat for the National System for Public Security (SESNSP) is a division of the Mexican Secretary of Gobernacion. Each month the SESNSP publishes statistics on the numbers of crimes and crime victims in the 32 states of Mexico. Those data are available online at this link:

New data generally comes online around the 20th of each month. The current data is for January – October 2019.  The numbers below include the total number of intentional homicide victims + the number of feminicide victims. The crime of feminicide is defined as the murder of a woman with a clear gender motive.

As I was looking at the data in the latest report, I noticed that the column for homicidios dolosos had been adjusted slightly in some of the past months, generally down, and the numbers of feminicides had increased slightly. I assume this is because as a crime is investigated, it may be reclassified.

These numbers indicate an average of 2,957 homicide victims each month; 97 victims each day.

In the Animal Politico article posted below, the figure of 32,565 includes homicide and feminicide victims from December 2018 (the first month of the AMLO sexenio – October 2019).

The thing about these numbers that stands out most to me is how little variation there is from month to month. The numbers are slightly higher than 2018, but very similar.

In terms of comparison with past years, the chart below shows the numbers of homicidios dolosos 2008 – October 2019.

Mexico’s Secretariat for Security & Citizen Protection of the Secretariado Ejecutivo del Sistema Nacional de Seguridad Pública (SESNSP) updated crime victims statistics on September 20, with data on a variety of crimes for January-August 2019.

The numbers continue to move steadily upward, with totals of nearly 3,000 victims of homicide each month so far this year. The table below includes just the numbers of “homicidios dolosos” (intentional homicides/murders) and “feminicidios,” defined as gender-related homicides. The total number of homicides reported for 8 months is 23,724 (including homicidios dolosos + feminicidios)–on average about 98 people each day are victims of homicide in Mexico.  If the trend continues at the same rate, the year will end with a death toll of more than 35,600 victims—this is about 1000 more victims according to the same dataset from 2018.

You can browse these data compilations online here: https://www.gob.mx/sesnsp/acciones-y-programas/victimas-nueva-metodologia?state=published

The only thing that really jumps out from these numbers is how depressingly similar the last few years have been in terms of the continual growth of homicidal violence in Mexico. It has been 10 months since AMLO took over as President, promising to improve security for the Mexican people, but the violence continues to increase. Also, at the high point of Calderon’s “drug war,” in 2011, there were about 27,200 homicides. After a decrease from 2012-2015, the trend turned around and started to climb. So far, it seems that the next high point remains in the future. Without considering the estimated 30,000-40,000 missing or disappeared, more than 301,000 Mexicans have been murdered since 2007.

[The tables above are screenshots from a spreadsheet I use to keep track of these numbers.]

At the links provided above you can review the data for each Mexican state. Using the murder rate (# of homicides per 100,000 people) the most violent states so far in 2019 are Colima with a rate of 56, followed by Baja California: 48, Chihuahua: 38, and Morelos and Guanajuato with murder rates of about 30. There is more analysis in the Animal Politico article here: https://www.animalpolitico.com/2019/09/homicidios-agosto-2019-record-violencia/

Molly Molloy

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The new cumulative data bulletin from Instituto Nacional de Estadistica e Geografia (INEGI) was released on July 25, 2019, covering 2009-2018, total homicide data from Mexico.  The full bulletin is online here:

The INEGI data is released each year at this time and I’ve saved and compiled it since about 2008.  The preliminary data on Mexican homicides is released each month from a different agency, the SESNSP which reports homicides from procuradoras or fiscalias (state prosecutors’ offices) in each Mexican state. The INEGI data is gathered and reported from medical legal investigators offices in all of the states, compiling data from death certificates listing homicide as cause of death. So the two data sources are not exactly comparable. The INEGI data is generally considered the most valid.

Since I started tracking this about 10 years ago, the INEGI data has usually been higher than the preliminary SESNSP figures. For example, the SESNSP reported a total of 33,523 homicides in Mexico in 2018; the new INEGI data reports 35,964 for the same period.  This new data shows that the increase in homicides from 2017-2018 was much higher than previously reported.

In addition to the raw numbers, the INEGI report shows the murder rate (# of homicides per 100,000 people) for the nation and for each state in Mexico.  Between 2017 and 2018, the murder rate jumped from 26 to 29. It is significant to note that in 2011–the most violent year of the so-called “war on drugs”–the murder rate in Mexico was 24.

Adding in the estimate of January-June 2019 homicides from the SESNSP, the official number of victims for the past 12.5 years is now approaching 300,000. On average from 2007-June 2019, more than 65 people have been murdered each day in Mexico.  During 2019, on average, 99 people per day were murdered in Mexico. This figure DOES NOT include any of the estimated 40,000 people reported missing and/or disappeared in Mexico. molly molloy

The SESNSP statistics also record 75 victims of feminicidio. This is (I believe) a subset of the total of 304 female victims in which the prosecutors have determined that the woman was murdered because of her gender. The article in El Universal discusses the confusing nature of this way of classifying victims. The article quotes Maria de la Luz Estrada, coordinator of the National Citizens Observatory of Feminicide: “The authorities often designate many homicides as related to organized crime and those are simply not investigated…thus the numbers (of feminicides) tend to be lower.”

Also below, El Diario reported the first homicide of March which occurred at about 12:20 am on March 1, 2019.

It may be worth noting again in terms of the Trump rhetoric of chaos and violence at the border, that the cities on the US side of the border have low homicide rates.

El Paso recently reported 23 homicides during 2018, and an average of 16 murders per year during the past decade.

The city of McAllen in the Rio Grande Valley reported sharp decreases in violent crime in 2018. There were NO HOMICIDES in McAllen during the past year: https://www.themonitor.com/2019/01/18/crime-mcallen-dropped-significantly-2018/

The city announced on Friday that 2018 saw the lowest crime rate in 34 years, just as President Donald Trump has recently called the current state of the southwest border a national security crisis. There were no homicides in McAllen last year. There was the fewest number of robberies and aggravated assaults on record.

molly molloy