Beale, S. S.2015-01-282015-01-281993Beale, S. S. (1993, June). Prior similar acts in prosecutions for rape and child sex abuse. Criminal Law Forum , 4(2), 307-326). Kluwer Academic Publishers.http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2044&context=faculty_scholarshiphttp://hdl.handle.net/11212/2125Two events that occurred in the United States in the early 1990s focused public attention on the rules governing the admissibility of prior similar acts in prosecutions for rape and child sex abuse. The first event was a Bush administration proposal to amend the Federal Rules of Evidence to add new rules authorizing the admission of acts of similar character in a prosecution for either sexual assault or child sex abuse. Although relatively few rape and child sex abuse cases are prosecuted in the federal courts, this proposal is significant because most states now base their own rules of evidence on the Federal Rules. The second event was the highly publicized acquaintance rape prosecution of William Kennedy Smith, which demonstrated the powerful effect that the proposed amendment might have. This article will review the current law in the United States regarding the admissibility of prior similar acts in prosecutions for rape and child sex abuse and evaluate the arguments for and against enacting the proposed amendments. (Author Text)en-USchild abusechild sexual abuseperpetratorsrecidivismlawreviewArticle