This Pass or Prepared? is brought to you, courtesy of the Social Science Research Institute Council, from their Workshop on Wednesday, June 14, 2000. SSRIC offers a Hypertext Version of their own text on SPSS by Richard Shaffer, Edward Nelson, Nan Chico, John Korey, Elizabeth Nelson, and James Ross. ISBN: 0-07-241445-6

These SPSS Pass? or Prepared?s also follow the Dowdall, Logio, Babbie, and Halley, text: Adventures in Criminal Justice Research, for SPSS Versions 7.5, 8.0, or Higher. ISBN: 0-7619-8625-1

To run SPSS you must have access to the SPSS program, which is licensed to the school. To run it on your home computer you need a special student version which is not free. For that reason, we offer you alternative exercises on SDA, which is free to use anywhere you have access to the Internet. Some familiarity with SPSS is an important skill to acquire.

Let's try it.

• First, with this exercise up, press the START button, select Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator, or whichever browser you prefer . You should now have two browser windows available, the second of which is active. In that second window link to this URL: http://www.csubak.edu/ssric/Modules/SPSS/SPSFirst.htm, the SSRIC Online text for SPSS.

  Then, with The SSRIC Text still on the screen, Press the START button, select Programs, and select SPSS. Open the file: justice.sav

  Switching Screens with the Task Bar

  Now you should have three buttons on your task bar at the very bottom of the screen. Leftmost should be the Pass? or Prepared? with instructions and questions. In the middle should be the SSRIC text on SPSS, and on the rightmost should be the SPSS program with the justice.sav file. You may transfer the justice.sav file to your computer from any FTP program or from a disk. Ask jeanne for help. You can move back and forth between these three screens just by clicking your mouse on the proper button. Try it, until you are comfortable with moving back and forth.

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  Looking at the Data Matrix

  Just about halfway down the first file on the SSRIC text, you will find a data matrix. They used the gss.sav file. We will look at that later. For now let's see what we can tell about the justice.sav file.

  Click on any question number to see jeanne's answer to that question.

  1. What is evident from a first glance at the table?

     One Plausible Answer

     That these are data for the different states. There are 51 states because they include the District of Columbia. An excerpt from this table is on p. 71 of the DLBH text. If you don't have a copy of that text, ask to see jeanne's or Pat's copy.

  2. Can you make a best guess at what some of the numbers mean, just by looking at the table?

     One Plausible Answer

     "Violent" seems to suggest something to do with violence, and states like California, Florida, Illinois, and Texas seem to have more of this violence.

  3. Touch your mouse very gently to the word "violent". Hold the mouse very still. Do NOT click! A "yellow tip" should appear on your screen just below the mouse with the words "Number of Violent Crimes". Now what do you suppose the number means in the "Violent Column"?

     One Plausible Answer

     The number in the "violent" column is probably the number of violent crimes in the state named. For example, during the reporting period (1993) for this table, California must have had 336,381 violent crimes, Texas 137,419, and Iowa 9159. That would seem to be a logical interpretation of these numbers because Texas and California might be expected to have a greater number of violent crimes than Iowa. However, according to this table, New York had only 195 violent crimes, which does not appear to be a reasonable interpretation.

  4. Scroll the table to the right until you come to the variable "totspend"? Compare Alaska and California on that variable.

     One Plausible Answer

     Having trouble following the state names across? There's an easy solution. Click your mouse in the cell with the row number 2. The whole row is highlighted. Click your row in the cell with the row number 5. The highlighting from row 2 jumps to row 5. But again, there's a fairly easy solution. Hold the SHIFT key down and, starting in the cell with row number 2, drag your mouse through rows, 3 and 4, and into row 5, California. Now 4 rows are highlighted, starting with Alaska and ending with California.

     Now scroll the screen to "totspend" and see that Alaska has a Total Justice System Expenditures of 572.6 and California has a total of 454.6. You must be careful as you scroll over not to touch your mouse to the screen itself, for another click will make the highlighting go away. Why shouild Alaska have a higher total than California? That is certainly a question we will have to ask of this data set.

  5. Scroll the table to the right until you come to the variable "jusjobs"? Compare Alaska and California on that variable.

     One Plausible Answer

     Alaska has a Total Justice System Full-time Employment Rate (per 10,000) of 68.8, while California has 59.7. Now, why on earth should that be? Could it be more expensive to incarcerate in Alaska? There is much less violent crime in Alaska. (Scroll back to the "violent" variable.) Use the button on your task bar to switch between screens, and use the scroll bars to move around. Otherwise, if you touch the screen itself, the highlighting will go away, remember?

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     Figurine by Rudiger Appel. Notice that you can see three effects in the animation. Either the Variation on the Kandinsky figurine appears to turn in a clockwise direction, or in a counterclockwise direction, or it appears to open and close. Can you see all three effects? Try. Fascinated? Link to Appel's site and then link to the background he provides. Scroll down until you find a link to background.

Copright: Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata, June 2000. "Fair Use" encouraged.