Lawrence Woodard - Repeat Sex Offender

They say it is unfair to the offender. What would really be unfair would be to let violent, mentally unstable offenders continue to make victims out of innocent women and children

Last year, a new law allowing the state to keep the most dangerous sexual predators off the streets took effect. The Sexual Predators Act allows some sex offenders to be held in what is called civil commitment after their prison sentences are up.

A case that came to light this week shows why this is such a good law.

A convicted violent sex offender, Lawrence Woodard, was released in 2006 after serving a total of 33 years for violent crimes against women, including rape, kidnapping and assault (he stabbed a woman 19 times with a letter opener).

From the time he was 19 years old, any time Woodard was free, he preyed on women. He had been sentenced to life in the state psychiatric hospital, but after seven escapes and numerous crimes he finally was found competent to stand trial and was locked up for 33 years, the Concord Monitor reported this week.

When he was released two years ago, "I knew damn well he was going to do it again," Thomas Winn, a retired state police trooper, told the Monitor. But New Hampshire had no law allowing the civil commitment of violent sex offenders to the state psychiatric hospital.

Woodard has been charged with raping and kidnapping a woman at knifepoint on Monday near his family's home town in New York state.

When Woodard moved to New York, Winn and police in Concord contacted local police and the media to alert them, the Monitor reported. But it wasn't enough. A civil commitment statute could have kept this dangerous sexual predator off the streets.

Some are trying to overturn the statute that was passed just months after Woodard was released.

They say it is unfair to the offender. What would really be unfair would be to let violent, mentally unstable offenders continue to make victims out of innocent women and children.

"25% of all sex offenders re-offend within 15 years"

.........Sarah Tofte

13% of all new sex crimes is committed by someone
who is already on the sex offender registry
..........Sarah Tofte, Human Rights Watch