Friday, July 11, 2025

Government plans to create commission to reinforce efforts to combat homicides

The federal government is planning to create a temporary commission to assist efforts to combat homicides, which numbered more than 15,000 in the first six months of the year.

The Security Ministry (SSPC) outlined the proposed function and composition of the Internal Commission for Attention to the Crime of Intentional Homicide in a document submitted to the National Commission for Regulatory Improvement.

The ministry said the commission will be responsible for coordinating the anti-homicide efforts of the federal government’s security and law enforcement agencies. “Through coordination mechanisms,” the commission will also collaborate with state and municipal security authorities within the framework of the federal anti-homicide strategy, the SSPC said.

The commission — whose overarching aim is to support “the effective prevention, investigation, prosecution and punishment of the crime of intentional homicide — will be “the base for the subsequent formalization of the National Anti-Homicide Coordination,” the ministry said.

Security Minister Rosa Icela Rodríguez has emphasized that intentional homicides are trending down, but AMLO's term remains on track to be the most violent of recent administrations.
Security Minister Rosa Icela Rodríguez has emphasized that intentional homicides are trending down.

The head of the SSPC’s General Unit of Legal Affairs and Transparency will lead the commission, with other Security Ministry officials and representatives of the National Guard completing its composition.

“The assigned personnel will carry out the tasks entrusted to it,” the SSPC document said. “… To achieve its purpose the commission will have working groups that will meet periodically according to the needs of the service or at least once a month.”

The commission will manage a criminal information system containing homicide data, formulate bimonthly reports detailing actions carried out to combat the crime and provide advice on security policy and strategy to federal, state and municipal authorities, among other responsibilities.

Its establishment will occur after the government publishes a document to that end in its official gazette. The commission will be absorbed into the National Anti-Homicide Coordination once that institution has been established.

President López Obrador campaigned on a promise to reduce violence in Mexico, but his first full year in office — 2019 — was the worst on record for homicides with over 34,000 victims, and over 30,000 people were murdered in each of 2020 and 2021.

All told, over 120,000 people have been murdered since the president was sworn in December 1, 2018. Homicides declined 9.1% in the first six months of 2022, Security Minister Rosa Icela Rodríguez reported in late July, but AMLO’s six-year term nevertheless remains on track to be the most violent in recent decades.

With reports from Animal Político and El Universal 

Have something to say? Paid Subscribers get all access to make & read comments.
A small plane flies over the ocean

How the Mexican security minister’s slip of the tongue rankled Salvadoran President Bukele

2
President Bukele took exception after García Harfuch's identified a drug-smuggling plane as coming from El Salvador.
gold bars

Highway robbery near Guadalajara nets 6 million pesos worth of gold and silver

0
Such open-road heists have risen in frequency recently and could pose a threat to potential investors otherwise attracted by nearshoring opportunities.
Security chief Omar García Harfuch, Attorney General Gertz and other Mexian officials sit on a stage in front of a banner reading "National Strategy against Extortion" in spanish

Authorities launch national strategy against extortion to tackle a pernicious and widespread crime

1
The strategy contemplates new laws that would force states to investigate the crime, even when victims are too afraid to make an official report.
BETA Version - Powered by Perplexity