Melissa Data Announces New Tool to Search FBI Crime Statistics by City

Protect your safety and the largest investment you may make—your house—by knowing upfront where murders, rapes, thefts and other crimes have occurred

RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA, Calif. (August 9, 2005) – A new online tool to look up crime statistics across the country is now available from Melissa Data, a provider of data management software and services. The Crime Statistics Lookup allows anybody to access information on major crimes that affect a city’s crime index rating.

Valuable to homeowners and investors, the Crime Statistics Lookup displays the most recent Uniform Crime Statistics from the FBI for major cities in a selected state. The data is put into an index rating system based on the number of crimes per 10,000 population. The lower the crime index numbers the safer the city. Crimes tallied include murders, rapes, robberies, assaults, burglaries, thefts, car thefts and arsons.

“The results can be surprising,” said Ray Melissa, president of Melissa Data. “A small town can have a much higher crime rating than a large city. Now visitors to our Web site can find statistics and other information that may directly affect their home buying or relocation decisions.

“Data is our business,” continued Melissa. “We want to show how valuable public information can be so we put together this free Internet resource which is used by thousands of people every day.”

Another related new lookup from Melissa Data is Fatal Vehicle Accidents which displays the number and manner of deadly vehicle crashes by county. The data can be useful in choosing a business or residential location.

Melissa Data specializes in ZIP Code™ related data. The company’s Online Lookup site features 32 specialized databases to search. Visitors can also use this site to verify mailing addresses, check phone numbers and access the latest demographics on states, cities and counties.

Melissa Data’s Online Lookups are free up to ten lookups per day. Registered users will get 50 free per day. For volume users, a subscription is available which allows up to 500 lookups per day for $10 per month or $50 per year. To try these new search tools, consumers can go to: www.melissadata.com/crime.

About Melissa Data
Celebrating its 20th year, Melissa Data, the Data Superstore, helps companies manage and optimize their contact data. Melissa Data provides solutions for address and phone number validation, postal encoding, data enhancements and sales leads. Every day more than 70,000 people visit the company’s Web site. A powerful line of software, databases, programming tools, and hygiene services has made Melissa Data a recognized leader in the data quality industry. For more information, or to request trial software, call 1-800-800-6245 or visit www.melissadata.com.

ZIP Code™ is a registered trademark of the United States Postal Service.