LOCKPORT—Niagara County Judge Sara Sheldon Sperrazza said Thursday that a North Tonawanda man due to be released from state prison in January should be referred to the state’s civil confinement program for sex offenders.

Francis J. Bald, 54, has three felony convictions and several other arrests, many for sex crimes, on a criminal record that began in 1973. He’s currently in prison for molesting a woman and chasing her down the street when she escaped from his home in November 2004.

Sperrazza rated Bald a Level 3 sex offender, the most severe classification, but she said, “This guy should be about a Level 8 if there were such a thing.”

She told Assistant District Attorney Susan B. Bjornholm to call the state attorney general’s office and pass on a recommendation for consideration of civil confinement, under which a sex offender could be committed to a mental institution for as long as the rest of his life.