Research Question 1: For which violent crimes perpetrated in residential settings are adults aged 65 or older more likely than people aged 64 or younger to be victimized?

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The following code creates the variables necessary to answer the research question and creates a table. When using this code, be sure to insert the path and the filename of the data file to be used. The final data file is not saved, so if you want to save the variables that were created, be sure and save the file before exiting. If you need any assistance working with the syntax provided, please contact us.

The assumptions for the following example are:

The data file was created as described in "Reading A Multi-Level Data File Into SPSS";
An aggregated flat file was created as described in "Creating An Incident-Level Aggregated Flat File"; and
The individual data segments were saved in separate files as described in "Preparing Individual File Segments For Detailed Analysis."

Defining the Variables

The unit of analysis for this research question is incident. The incident-level flat file can be used rather than multiple segments (administrative, victim, offense) because the variables needed were created with the aggregate command in the Creating An Incident-level Aggregated Flat File procedure. First, a variable called INDEX is created from the most serious incident offense and values of INCED are RECODEd into eight categories representing the Part I index offenses (categories 1 - 7) and all other offenses (category 8). From this RECODE, the variable MSOFFGP is created to group person offenses, propery offenses, and other offenses.

GET FILE = 'Directory:\Path\Incident-level flat file.sav'.
COMPUTE index = msioff.
RECODE index (90 = 1)(110 = 2) (120 = 3)(130 = 4)(140 = 5)
   (160 thru 167 = 6)(150 = 7)(else = 8).
VALUE LABELS index 1 'Murder and Nonnegligent Manslaughter'
   2 'Forcible Rape' 3 'Robbery' 4 'Aggravated Assault' 5 'Burglary'
   6 'Larceny' 7 'Motor Vehicle Theft' 8 'All other offenses'.
RECODE index (1 thru 4 = 1)(5 thru 7 = 2)(else = 3)into msoffgp.
VALUE LABELS msoffgp 1 'Person Offenses' 2 'Property Offenses'
   3 'Other Offenses'.

For location, the incident location INC_LOC is RECODEd into a dichotomous (two value) variable where the values are home/residence or other. The variable V_AGE65, which is a count of the victims aged 65 or older, is RECODEd into a dichotomous variable where the victim ages are counted as either age 64 or younger OR age 65 or older..

RECODE inc_loc (20 = 1)(else = 2)into locgroup.
VALUE LABELS locgroup 1 'Home/Residence' 2 'Other Location'.
RECODE vage65 (0 = 2)(1 thru hi = 1)into age65grp.
VALUE LABELS age65grp 1 'Age 65 or Older' 2 'Age 64 or Younger'.
VARIABLE LABELS msoffgp '' index '' age65grp '' locgroup ''.

Producing the Output

To answer this question, a filter is used to limit the analysis to those incidents with a location of home or residence and a most serious offense group of violent person offenses, as defined above. The output is formatted into a table displaying column percentages for the most serious offense group by age group by location group.

USE ALL.
COMPUTE filter_$=(locgroup = 1 & msoffgp = 1).
VARIABLE LABEL filter_$ 'locgroup = 1 & msoffgp = 1(FILTER)'.
VALUE LABELS filter_$ 0 'Not Selected' 1 'Selected'.
FORMAT filter_$ (f1.0).
FILTER by filter_$.
* General Tables.'
TABLES
/format blank missing('.')
/gbase=cases
/table= index BY age65grp > locgroup.
/statistics
cpct( locgroup( PCT5.1 ) '':age65grp locgroup ).

The output produced by these commands is a table.

The output shows that adults aged 65 or older are nearly five times more likely than younger adults and juveniles to be the victim of murder or non-negligent manslaughter in a home or residence and about six and one-half times more likely to be the victim of robbery in a home or residence.

Table 1.