Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said he plans on making changes to Mexico's police structure on Thursday, while also promising to stop corruption of officials who are related to drugs and gangs, according to CNN.
The most recent act of violence consists of 43 missing students who have been reportedly assassinated.
Nieto has been called on by angry Mexican protesters to stop police and high official corruption and violence since the trainee teachers were abducted and handed over to a local drug gang in the southwestern city of Iguala on Sept. 26, CNN reported.
The government says the students were almost certainly murdered and their bodies incinerated, but it is still investigating the case that has sparked the biggest crisis of Nieto's two-year rule.
"Mexico cannot continue like this," Nieto said in a speech to an assembly of Mexico's political leaders, according to the NY Daily News.
"After Iguala, Mexico has to change," Nieto added. "Our country has been shaken by cruelty and barbarism."
Nieto has yet to visit Iguala or the students' training college in the nearby town of Ayotzinapa.
Nieto is now promising the protesters a new law to stop the infiltration of local governments by organized crime, the NY Daily News reported.
Nieto also pledged to reform the penal system, and to send a proposal to Congress to unify multi-layered police forces in Mexico's 31 states.
Only about 2 percent of crimes in Mexico result in convictions, according to CNN. Even senior Mexican officials who are tried in the United States courts are hardly ever convicted.
Since Nieto took office two years ago, the murder rate has fallen a bit. Since the kidnapping and murder of the student teachers, confidence in his ability to keep Mexico safe has also fallen.
