Level of Moral Reasoning Among African-American and Caucasian Domestic Violence Offenders Prior to Targeted Professional Intervention

In the effort to improve intervention efforts with African-American batterers, a recent study explored the possible contribution of moral development as a unifying construct around which culturally relevant intervention strategies could be developed. Results of that study indicated that batterers were employing a level of moral reasoning two standard deviations lower than adults in general and that there were no significant differences between African-American and Caucasian participants on level of moral reasoning. The purpose of the present study was to replicate this earlier study by investigating the level of moral reasoning of 55 adult men, 84% African-American, court-ordered into treatment for domestic violence offenses. Results indicated that the entire sample of batterers was employing a level of moral reasoning significantly lower than adults in general and subgroup comparisons revealed no significant differences between African-American participants and Caucasian participants on level of moral reasoning. The results of this research provide further empirical evidence for the importance of targeting moral development in intervention efforts with batterers.