Executive Summary
This is the 12th edition of the Mexico Peace Index (MPI), produced by the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP). It provides a comprehensive measure of peacefulness in Mexico, including trends, analysis, and estimates of the economic impact of violence. The MPI is based on the Global Peace Index, the world’s leading measure of global peacefulness, produced by IEP every year since 2007. The MPI consists of 12 sub-indicators aggregated into five major indicators.
Mexico’s peacefulness improved by 0.7 percent in 2024. This was the fifth straight year of modest improvement, following four years of steep deteriorations. Last year, 18 states improved in their peace scores and 14 states deteriorated.
Colima ranked as the country’s least peaceful state for the third year in a row, as it once again had over 100 killings per 100,000 people, by far the worst murder rate in the country. The next most violent states were Guanajuato, Morelos, Baja California and Quintana Roo. In contrast, Yucatán was the most peaceful state in Mexico for the eighth consecutive year, followed by Tlaxcala, Durango, Chiapas and Nayarit.
Despite modest improvements over the past five years, Mexico is substantially less peaceful than it was in 2015. In that time, peace in the country has deteriorated by 13.4 percent, with many crime indicators significantly higher than they were a decade ago. The homicide rate, for example, is 54.7 percent higher than in 2015, and the firearms crime rate is 71.2 percent higher.
Organized criminal activity continues to be the main driver of the extreme levels of violence in Mexico. Since 2007, the annual number of homicides estimated to be linked to criminal organizations has increased more than sixfold, rising from about 3,000 yearly deaths to roughly 18,000 last year. In contrast, homicides not associated with organized crime have shown comparatively little change in this same period.
Much of this violence arises in the context of Mexico’s complex relationship with the United States, particularly Mexican cartels’ activities to meet the demand from the massive US market for illicit drugs – especially fentanyl. The vast majority of the flows of goods and people across the Mexico-US border are legal, regulated and mutually beneficial. However, in the past decade, the illegal cross-border flows of drugs, weapons and money have had devastating impacts on both Mexico and the United States. In Mexico, they have fueled extreme levels of armed conflict among organized criminal groups across large swaths of the country, and in the United States they have been associated with tens of thousands of deaths from drug overdoses. Moreover, recent surges in the northward flows of unauthorized international migrants have had destabilizing effects on both countries, giving rise to diplomatic tensions and internal political divisions. However, statistics from the past three years suggest that some of these unauthorized or illicit flows – specifically those related to migrants and drugs – may have peaked in 2022- 2023 and could now be on a downward trajectory.
In the past decade, Mexico has also seen a rise in domestic forms of organized crime, particularly retail drug crimes and extortion. Extortions have risen by 45.5 percent since 2015, while retail drug crimes have risen by more than 161 percent. While Mexico has traditionally been seen as a producer or transit point for drugs destined for the United States, its internal drug market has been growing in recent years. There has been a marked rise in Mexicans seeking treatment for psychoactive substances such as methamphetamine and ecstasy, even as abuse of substances like alcohol and marijuana appears to be declining.
In the context of Mexico’s historic national elections of June 2024, last year was the deadliest year on record for political figures in the country. There were at least 201 politically motivated killings in 2024, with about one-fifth of the deaths occurring in the month preceding the election. Data from the last three election cycles shows that political violence tends to spike immediately before each election. The vast majority of the victims of political violence are figures operating at the municipal level. Experts have suggested that this is due to the substantial importance that local power holds for organized criminal groups.
There is a rising trend of people being reported missing or disappeared across Mexico, which has caused growing levels of alarm and outrage. Since 2010, there have been roughly 292,000 reported cases of missing persons in Mexico, and more than half of these cases are from the past six years. In parallel to this, a rise in the discovery of mass and unmarked graves across the country suggests that many of these missing individuals have likely been the victims of homicide. The practice of homicide and the secretive burial of bodies has been particularly prevalent in Jalisco. Since 2006, one-third of the bodies found in clandestine graves across Mexico have been found in Jalisco alone. In March 2025, the discovery of a mass killing site in Teuchitlán, Jalisco sparked national protests over the perceived failures of authorities to prevent such violence and to properly search for and locate the bodies of victims.
The economic cost of Mexico’s extreme levels of violence is staggering. Last year, the economic impact of violence increased for the first time since 2019. It totaled 4.5 trillion pesos (US$245 billion) in 2024, equivalent to 18 percent of Mexico’s GDP. On a per capita basis, the economic impact was 33,905 pesos, more than the average monthly salary of a Mexican worker. Last year, the impact increased by 3.4 percent, or 149 billion pesos.
Mexico’s spending on domestic security and the justice system are well below regional and international levels. Mexico spent 0.7 percent of its GDP on domestic security and the justice system in 2024, less than half of the average for both Latin America and OECD countries.
To tackle crime and violence more effectively, Mexico’s judicial system is in need of increased investment. The country has an average of 4.4 judges and magistrates per 100,000 people, one-fourth the global average. This has resulted in large numbers of people being incarcerated while awaiting trial or sentencing. Strengthening the judiciary is of particular importance for combatting Mexico’s high levels of impunity. In 2024, Mexico passed a judicial reform which shifts the judicial selection process to direct elections by popular vote. While the aim of this reform is to promote accountability and increase efficiency, experts argue that elections could serve to make the judicial system more vulnerable to political influence, ultimately undermining its ability to blindly uphold the rule of law.
Mexico’s socio-economic resilience, as measured by its Positive Peace Index (PPI) score, has deteriorated by 2.4 percent in the last decade. This represents a larger deterioration than was seen by the greater Central American and the Caribbean region, which on average deteriorated by 0.8 percent. Positive Peace is a measure of the attitudes, institutions and structures that create and sustain peaceful societies.
Mexico’s deterioration in Positive Peace over the past decade has been driven by deteriorations in four Pillars of Positive Peace: Well-Functioning Government, Good Relations with Neighbors, Sound Business Environment and Low Levels of Corruption. This report’s sub-national measure of the Positive Peace, the Mexico Positive Peace Index (MPPI), further shows that Low Levels of Corruption and Well-Functioning Government are the Pillars with the highest levels of correlation with actual levels of peacefulness across states, as measured by the MPI and its five indicators of negative peace. This suggests that corruption and administrative ineffectiveness are key drivers of violence in Mexico, as they contribute to impunity and reduce the resources available to combat crime.
While robust security strategies are indispensable to reducing violence in Mexico, building peacefulness also requires continued initiatives to address the social and institutional conditions that give rise to violence. It will be important to foster greater levels of public trust by tackling corruption, strengthening institutions so that they are seen as effective and legitimate, and expanding meaningful opportunities for young people. The 2025 Mexico Peace Index report offers a multifaceted view of the country’s challenges related to peace and violence, providing insights for policymakers, business leaders, and civil society seeking to build peace across the country.