Judge: Community involvement needed for juvenile justice

FRANKLIN — Outgoing Morgan City Court Judge Kim Stansbury had a boast Wednesday as he prepares to leave office:
“I can say this without any hesitation,” Stansbury told a St. Mary Chamber audience at The Forest. “Morgan City Court has the best juvenile court in the state.”
But there was also a plea: “I tell you, some of these kids don’t have a chance unless the community gets involved.”
Stansbury, 75, announced his retirement in May. He stayed on the bench until a successor can be selected. Earlier this month, attorney Paul T. Landry qualified without opposition to assume the post Stansbury has held for 29-1/2 years.
The judge told a Rotary-Kiwanis audience last week that his court handled 109 juvenile cases in 2025.
Young people can land before Stansbury after committing serious crimes. They can also end up in court for a “families in need of services” determination involving lesser offenses such as running away or truancy.
“If we wait until they’re guilty or convicted of something,” Stansbury told the Chamber audience, “it’s too late.”
The court monitors offenders’ school attendance, but not for grades, Stansbury said. The judge wants to know that they’re showing up and behaving.
The court can require community service, and offers counseling for substance abuse, social skills and anger management.
The judge said young people sometimes come from families that fail to instill values in their children, and sometimes the parents themselves are in the court system themselves.
“If we fail them, we’ll have people nobody cares about,” Stansbury said. “And guess what? They don’t care about you.”
He said society seems to be heading in the wrong direction.
“We need to get back to the basic principles that you have in your lives,” Stansbury said.
The judge provided two examples of the serious crimes the programs are designed to head off.
One, in 2022, involved a fight at Centerville High. One of the antagonists stole a brother’s AR-15 rifle and came to Morgan City, looking for revenge at the Louisiana Shrimp & Petroleum Festival. The youth was arrested before anyone was hurt.
In 2025, a young man led police on a high-speed chase in Berwick that resulted in a crash that injured two officers.
In both those cases, Stansbury said, he was forced to search for beds in juvenile facilities at a cost of $250 a day.
Stansbury said he takes part in meetings with state agencies with some role to play in juvenile services: the Office of Juvenile Justice, the Department of Children and Family Service, the Department of Health and more.
The Morgan City Court is one of only three in the state that receives funding under a specific juvenile justice program, Stansbury said. If the court develops a program that works, agencies are sometimes willing to provide funding for it, he said.
He has found the St. Mary Parish School Board is sometimes more reluctant out of concern that programs have to be available for young people across the parish.
Stansbury was also critical of a justice reform during the administration of Gov. John Bel Edwards, which required 17-year-old offenders to be treated as juveniles rather than adults.
The result, officials including Stansbury said at time, was a sharp increase in serious crimes committed by 17-year-olds.
The law has since changed so that 17-year-olds are no longer considered juveniles.