EZAPASHR Help
Need help creating a table with Easy Access to Pennsylvania's Supplementary Homicide Reports (EZAPASHR)? Start here.
EZAPASHR allows users to perform crosstabular analyses of homicide victims and known offenders in Pennsylvania.
Getting started
The Victim Crosstabs and Known Offenders Crosstabs pages contain two pull-down menus, labeled Row Variable and Column Variable, respectively. These options allow you to select the variables to be displayed in the analysis. One Row and Column variable must be selected.
The Selection Criteria table appears beneath the Row and Column variable pull-down menus. This table displays the values of the variables contained in the database and allows you to select a subset of records for analysis. If no selections are made, all records will be included in the analysis (this is the default setting). If one or more values are selected only records with the selected characteristics will be included in the analysis.
Performing analysis
The following example steps you through the procedure for analyzing the Pennsylvania Supplementary Homicide Reports database.
EXAMPLE 1: Suppose you are interested in trends in the number of homicide victims by sex. To perform this analysis, follow these steps.
Step 1: Determine the required variables based on your topic. In this example, there are 2 variables of interest, Year of Incident and Sex of Victim.
Step 2: Select "Year of Incident" from the row variable pull down menu.
Step 3: Select "Sex of Victim" from the column variable pull down menu.
Step 4: Click the "Show Table" button to perform the analysis.
Navigating the analysis results screen
All display tables from EZAPASHR contain the following information:
Table Title (displayed above the table): Indicates the variables used in the analysis. The Row and Column variables are separated with "by."
Selection Criteria box (when necessary): Displayed beneath the table title and indicates which (if any) specific values were chosen on the Selection page.
Display options
By default, all output tables from EZAPASHR display the estimated number of victims or known offenders. These results can be converted to row and column percents using the options presented in the blue horizontal divider located beneath the tabs.
Saving the results of your analysis
EZAPASHR allows you to save the results of your analysis in a tab-delimited text file that can be imported into spreadsheet or word-processing software.
Click on the "Download data" link located above the table display. When prompted by your browser, select the "save to disk" option. Specify a location and filename in the dialog box. Note: By default, tables downloaded from EZAPASHR will have an ".asp" extension. You can change this extension (e.g., to .txt).
The text file contains a recommended citation, table title and selection criteria, and the counts from your analysis. You will need to use spreadsheet software to calculate row and column percents or to create graphs.
Printing the results of your analysis
For best results, use the "Printer-friendly" option located at the top right of the screen to print your results. Your current screen display will be sent to the default printer assigned to your machine.
Performing analyses on a subset of cases
EXAMPLE 2: Suppose you are interested in trends in firearm-related homicides of juveniles. To perform this analysis, follow these steps.
Step 1: Determine the required variables based on your topic. In this example, there are 2 variables of interest, Year of Incident and Age of Victim.
Step 2: Select "Year of Incident" from the row pull down menu.
Step 3: Select "Age of Victim" from the column pull down menu.
NOTE: This example requires that we restrict our analysis to juvenile victims killed by a firearm. As such, we must use the selection criteria table to focus our analysis.
Step 4: First locate the section named "Age of Victim" in the selection criteria table and place a check mark in the boxes next to 0 to 5, 6 to 11, 12 to 14, and 15 to 17. Next, locate the section named "Weapon Used" and place a check mark in the box next to Firearm.
Step 5: Click the "Show Table" button. This performs the analysis of Year of Incident by Age of Victim for juveniles killed by a firearm.