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