Historical chart and dataset showing Mexico crime rate per 100K population by year from 1990 to 2021.

Crime is one of the most pressing issues faced in Mexico. In 2023, there were nearly 6,526 victims of theft or robbery on the street or public transportation per 100,00 inhabitants. Fraud is the type of crime with the highest victimization rate in the Latin American country, with 6,962 victims per 100,000 inhabitants.

In 2023, the State of Mexico was the federal entity with the most crimes per 100,000 inhabitants in Mexico. That year, ****** crimes were registered, above Aguascalientes and Mexico City both with over ****** crimes. Economically, the cost of crime in Mexico surpassed *** billion Mexican pesos.

In January 2024, the most usual type of crime reported in Mexico was domestic violence. In that month, the cases of this type of violence amounted to around 20,814 cases. Regarding property crimes, the highest number of occurrences were vehicle thefts, with nearly 11,887 reported crimes.

Domestic violence Domestic violence stands out as the crime with the highest incidence and, paradoxically, one of the least attended to by the government. Public spending allocated to combat domestic violence has been dismally low, with a value only around 25 percent of the spending on the military. Adding to the concern, this budget has witnessed a consistent decrease each year since 2015. This decline in resources has had severe consequences, leading to a surge in domestic violence crimes, with many resulting in homicides. It's noteworthy that the majority of registered femicides occur within the confines of closed domestic spaces and are often committed by the partners of the victims. This paints a concerning picture of the challenges faced in addressing and preventing domestic violence.

Mexico and the most violent cities in the world
Mexico hosts seven of the most dangerous cities globally, with Celaya ranking as the number one in terms of murder rate, registering a staggering 109.39 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants and the most of these other cities are concentrated in the upper region of the country, highlighting the significant regional variations in safety and security. On the other hand, the capital, Mexico City, has experienced a decreasing trend in crime incidence, with a notable decrease from 2018 to 2022, nonetheless, the crime rate is still high. As a result, crime and insecurity have become the primary concern for nearly half of the country's population, underscoring the pressing need for addressing these issues.

On average, 25 people were murdered every 100,000 inhabitants in Mexico in 2022, down from 28 homicide cases per 100,000 people the previous year. Mexico's murder rate increased remarkably between 2015 and 2018. Between January and June of 2023, the homicide rate stood at 12 cases.

Crime and violence in Mexico

Street violence and crime are some of the most pressing problems affecting Mexican society today. A recent survey revealed that, on average, almost 76 percent of the adult population felt unsafe. The perceived level of insecurity in Mexico is more worrisome among women than men. In recent years, violence against women in Mexico has significantly worsened.

Violence against women in Mexico

The number of femicides registered in Mexico has more than doubled between 2015 and 2023. Up to 827 women were murdered in Mexico in 2023 solely on account of their gender. Over the past decade, Mexico adopted this federal criminal typification to address the increasing cases of homicide motivated by gender. Mexico State was the region with the largest number of femicides reported as such in 2023, whereas Colima stood out as the Mexican state with the highest prevalence of femicides, based on 100,000 women.

In 2023, there were ****** crimes in Mexico City per 100,000 inhabitants. This represented an increase after two of the lowest values reported the previous years. Furthermore, the number of crime victims per 100,000 inhabitants in Mexico City in 2023, made it the third federal entity with the highest victimization rate in Mexico that year.

Mexico murder/homicide rate per 100K population for 2021 was 28.18, a 3.46% decline from 2020.

<ul style='margin-top:20px;'>

<li>Mexico murder/homicide rate per 100K population for 2020 was <strong>29.19</strong>, a <strong>0.42% decline</strong> from 2019.</li>
<li>Mexico murder/homicide rate per 100K population for 2019 was <strong>29.31</strong>, a <strong>0.92% decline</strong> from 2018.</li>
<li>Mexico murder/homicide rate per 100K population for 2018 was <strong>29.58</strong>, a <strong>13.28% increase</strong> from 2017.</li>
</ul>Intentional homicides are estimates of unlawful homicides purposely inflicted as a result of domestic disputes, interpersonal violence, violent conflicts over land resources, intergang violence over turf or control, and predatory violence and killing by armed groups. Intentional homicide does not include all intentional killing; the difference is usually in the organization of the killing. Individuals or small groups usually commit homicide, whereas killing in armed conflict is usually committed by fairly cohesive groups of up to several hundred members and is thus usually excluded.

A total of over ************ crimes were committed in Mexico City in 2023. The most common type of crime was theft or robbery on the street or public transport, which accounted for around **** percent of the total number of crimes. In 2023, the crime incidence rate in the country's capital was around ****** crimes per 100,000 inhabitants.

This database adapts the Piccato, P., Hidalgo, S., & Lajous, A. (2008). Estadísticas del crimen en México: Series Históricas 1926—2008. for analysis in decades paired with Mexican National Statistics Institute Censuses (INEGI) by imputing the non-systematic absences of homicide rates with population growth rates. The database allows studying crime rates for homicide, rape, robbery, smuggling with socioeconomic data in Mexico through the second half of the XX Century.

The number of people murdered in Mexico amounted to almost 33,300 in 2021, a slightly lower figure to the one registered one year earlier. Mexico ranked as the second Latin American country with the highest number of intentional homicides in 2022, only exceeded by Brazil.

Mexican cartels lose many members due to conflict with other cartels and arrests. Yet, despite their losses, cartels managed to increase violence for years. We address this puzzle by leveraging data on homicides, missing persons and arrests in Mexico for the past decade, along with information on cartel interactions. We model recruitment, state incapacitation, conflict and saturation as sources of cartel size variation. Results show that by 2022, cartels counted 160,000–185,000 units, becoming a top employer. Recruiting at least 350 people per week is essential to avoid their collapse due to aggregate losses. Furthermore, we show that increasing incapacitation would increase both homicides and cartel members. Conversely, reducing recruitment could substantially curtail violence and lower cartel size., Data obtained from Plataforma de Proyección de Datos Abierta, was processed to obtain a network structure. https://ppdata.politicadedrogas.org/ Trends were produced by solving a set of differential equations., Datasets are in a CSV format. Code is available for RStudio or R.

Over 25,000 murders were reported in Mexico in 2023. Guanajuato was the federal entity with most intentional homicides that year, amounting to 2,581 cases. Mexico State registered the second highest number of murder cases, with 2,254. When it comes to number of homicides in general - including both murder and manslaughter - Guanajuato ranked second behind Mexico State.

This data asset contains the data from the survey carried out in Mexico as part of the Juntos para la Prevención de la Violencia Performance Evaluation conducted by the Center on Conflict and Development at Texas A&M University. We surveyed a population that is representative at the urban national level for ages 16 to 29 (n = 1,539). Our sampling design ensures that our sample is not only representative across common sociodemographic categories (e.g., education and income), but also by level of violence. To do so, we consider three variables that capture levels of violence at the municipal level: homicide rate, reported nonhomicidal crime, and perceived level of violence. Homicide rates are considered more accurate official statistics compared to nonhomicidal crimes, as they are often reported more often by the general population and are typically recorded more accurately because they are definitionally specific and typically go through the health system (UNODC 2019). However, this measure does not capture the full reality of insecurity. For this reason, we also include measures generated from Mexico’s National Survey of Urban Public Security (ENSU) to capture nonhomicidal violence and insecurity at the municipal level. Given that the ENSU data are not representative at the municipal level, using this survey and the 2015 intercensus, we generate municipal estimates using multilevel regression and poststratification (MRP). These measures capture the preponderance of nonhomicidal crime (MRP victimization) and perceived community insecurity (MRP insecurity) at the municipal level. With these estimates and homicide rates, we then order municipalities based on level of insecurity and sample via seriation. Our sampling strategy generated a survey sample that is reflective of the ENSU survey in terms of violence level across all three categories. The dataset includes 102 columns and 1,539 rows (corresponding to each respondent). The survey aims to gather information about respondents’ sociodemographic characteristics, victimization, in/security perceptions, protective factors against delinquency, and exposure to and perceptions about gang participation. It also has embedded an original vignette experiment. Experimental vignette studies in survey research use short descriptions of hypothetical scenarios (vignettes) that are usually presented to respondents within surveys in order to elicit how their judgments about such scenarios affect outcomes of interest, often revealing their perceptions, values, or social norms. In our vignette, we randomize the perpetrator’s socioeconomic status and upbringing, the type of criminal involvement (leader vs. gang member), the severity of the crime, and the type of victim to understand how youth attribute blame.

In 2023, a total of 42,013 homicides were registered in Mexico, over 800 murder victims less than the death toll reported a year earlier. The number of homicides in Mexico, including intentional homicides and cases of manslaughter, grew between 2015 and 2018, before plateauing around 44,000 victims per year.

Kidnapping in Mexico In Mexico, even with a 20 percent reduction in the kidnapping rate, which amounted to 463 reported cases in 2023, the region continues to witness the distressing reality of five individuals being subjected to violent abduction daily. These heinous acts are chiefly perpetrated in various settings, including workplaces, residences, and public areas. Furthermore, the state with the highest recorded kidnapping incidence is Mexico State, marking a significant disparity in numbers. This dire situation positions the country as the third highest in terms of kidnapping occurrences throughout Latin America.

The increasing cases of human trafficking

Regarded as a grievous form of exploitation encompassing coerced labor or sexual servitude, the prevalence of human trafficking in the nation exhibits a disquieting escalation. This trend coincides with a decline in cases involving children, shifting the focus towards teens and adolescents, particularly females, who are now the primary target demographic. Perpetrators manipulate victims through deceitful practices and fraudulent schemes, effectively entrapping them in a web of organized criminal activities that deprive them of their freedom.

During November 2024, in the Mexican city of Guadalajara the most common crime was robberies with a 33.7 percent of the total documented crimes. Followed by frauds with 10.3 percent and domestic violence with 11.2 percent of the total.

The border city of Tijuana was the Mexican municipality with the highest number of homicides, with 1,844 cases reported in 2023, a decrease when compared to the over 2,000 cases reported last year. Tijuana was followed by Ciudad Juárez, located south of El Paso, Texas, with a total of 1,246 homicides.

There is theoretical divergence over how earthquakes affect crime. On the one hand, earthquakes improve individual cooperation, social trust, and crime reduction. On the other hand, earthquakes impact state capacity and enhance the prevalence of motivated offenders such as street gangs. This study empirically analyzes the effects of the September 2017 earthquakes in Mexico on personal crimes (assault and aggravated assault) and property crimes (vehicle theft, residential burglary, and vandalism). Using official police data, a difference-in-differences technique, and an event-study design, the results show that earthquakes increased assault by 14 percent and vandalism by 8 percent.

Since 2014, 209 incidents of anti-LGBTQ+ related hate crimes have been reported in ten of the 32 federal entities in Mexico where the source is able to collect data from local organizations. 112 victims of these crimes, that is, 53.6 percent of the total, identified as gay, the largest share by far. The sexual orientation of nearly a third of the victims remains unknown. Due to the difficulties that gathering this data poses, the source estimates that the real figures are considerably higher, with at least three unreported incidents for each known crime.

A total of over 222.368 crimes were reported in Mexico City in 2024. Cuauhtémoc was the municipality with the highest number of reported crimes, with over 32,500 cases. Followed by Iztapalapa and Gustavo A. Madero, the two most populous municipalities in Mexico City.

This study analyzes whether femicide in Mexico has increased more severely than other life and bodily integrity crimes (e.g., homicide, culpable homicide, injuries, malicious injuries, abortion, and other crimes that threaten life). To achieve this, the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System database was cleaned and the number of femicides per 100,000 inhabitants was calculated, for the period from January 2016 to March 2022 in all states of Mexico. Through descriptive statistics, non-parametric analysis of means, and hypothesis tests, we demonstrate that the states with the highest number of femicides are the Estado de Mexico (State of Mexico), Ciudad de Mexico (Mexico City), and Veracruz; moreover, the number of femicides exhibits a growing trend while the total number of life and bodily integrity crimes does not. Finally, we forecast the number of femicides for the next five months. To our knowledge, there is no other article that analyzes the growth trend of femicide compared to other crimes. Visualizing and understanding that femicide is on the rise compared with other types of crimes can help the government and legislators generate policies that are consistent with the magnitude of the problem.