Homicide Rate Drops 27 Percent Since Start of President Pena Nieto's Term Brianna Lee - IBTimes
go to original July 21, 2015

Demonstrators marched for peace in the wake of soaring drug-related violence in Guadalajara. (Reuters/Henry Romero)

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto was continuing to recover from a tough week that saw both the dazzling escape of drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and a disappointing show for its historic oilfield auction. Still, there were some hopeful statistics for the president to tout: New government figures released Monday showed that homicides fell again last year from the year before, making for a continuous downward streak since Peña Nieto first took office.

The national statistics office published its most recent homicide tally Monday, showing 19,669 homicides for 2014, or a rate of 16 per 100,000 people. That marks a 27 percent decrease in homicides since 2012, when Peña Nieto first stepped into office, and a 37 percent increase since Mexican homicide figures hit their peak in 2011. The figures include intentional as well as unintentional killings.

Peña Nieto said earlier this month that numbers were still on their way down in 2015. Speaking at a governor’s appointment ceremony in early July, he said Mexico saw a 27 percent decline in intentional homicides in the first five months of 2015 compared to the same period a year before, in addition to a 23.2 percent drop in kidnappings. Extortions also fell by 22.4 percent in early 2015, he said, crediting structural reforms for the recent shifts.

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