I have 4 specific variables on crime victimization - have you been shot, stabbed, robbed, assaulted. I would like to combine them into 1 variable. Have you been a victim of crime?

The answers would remain the same 0- never, 1 - once, 2 - more than once.

6 - refused, 8 - don't know 9 - N/A.

If I sum them together, I get repeats. I really only need to know if they have been a victim of any crime once.

When I run frequency table, it shows output for 3, 4, 5 and I don't have labels for them.

Thanks.

Try this, assuming that you have declared 6, 8, and 9 as missing values.

compute victemized = v1 gt 0 or v2 gt 0 or v3 gt 0 or v4 gt 0.

However, if any of the variables has a missing value and none of the known values are > 0, , the result will be missing, since the overall answer would be unknown

Here's an example. The first four values are the inputs and the last is the result.

1 0 0 0 1

6 6 6 6 .

6 0 0 0 .

8 1 1 1 1

1 2 3 4 1

1 8 8 8 1

0 0 0 0 0