
In the criminal justice system, sexually based offenses are considered especially heinous. In New York City, the dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious felonies are members of an elite squad known as the Special Victims Unit. These are their stories.
Season 1 Show All Episodes
Two underage models are attacked, raped and killed. The detectives identify the background details of the modeling business.
Benson and Stabler investigate the murder of a young woman who is initially believed to be a prostitute and the latest in a long line of victims.
Season 2 Show All Episodes
Stabler and Benson investigate a sexual assault very similar to one they worked a year and a half ago, whose first-known victim now follows her alleged attacker and reports his activities anonymously to the police, and the rapist's wife.
A 7-year-old girl lapses into a coma and the detectives investigate the members of her family to determine who's responsible for the abuse.
Season 3 Show All Episodes
The kidnapping of an infant at a grocery store leads to a scheme of snatching and selling babies for adoption which brings back a case from 12 years ago that involved Captain Cragen and his partner, the late Max Greevey.
An HIV-positive man with a habit of carrying out sexual trysts with teenage girls on the roofs of buildings is caught by the detectives, who are determined to put him back prison. But when a series of rapes and murders throughout Harlem cannot be traced to the man, and begin to affect Fin personally, they begin to wonder if they've been wrong about their prime suspect.
Season 4 Show All Episodes
A senile elderly lady is found wandering inside in a home that she was familiar with as a child. Detectives realize that she has been suffering abuse, when cigarette burns are discovered all over her frail body. Following the trail from her greedy, neglectful son, to the expensive nursing home he pulled her out of, they discover the man they believe was abusing her. During the course of their investigation, however, Benson and Stabler stumble across an even more sinister criminal committing even more heinous, previously undetected crimes against the elderly.
A dog finds an unrecognizable older lady's body in a park, with a bloody knife and bloody rain poncho nearby, plus doggy treats and an empty leash. Detectives locate the dog at a nearby vet, cleaned by the vet of trace evidence, but with the victim's bloody shoe. A lift in the shoe leads to identification of the victim, a health care worker whose duties included identification of the sources of patients' HIV infections. Eventually detectives suspect the victim's lawyer husband, who refuses to give a DNA sample, but donated at the blood bank, which informs that he was ...
Season 5 Show All Episodes
Police find a female forensic psychiatrist unconscious and bound in a basement, along with would-be rapists. She turns out to be the author of a book about rehabilitating convicted sex offenders. The detectives identify one of her patients as a suspect, and ask the doctor for his records, but they disappeared when her office was vandalized shortly after she left the hospital. A tape that disappeared during the break-in is brought to police by another suspect's sister, which leads the investigation to focus on victimology.
Investigating the brutal rape and murder of an undercover federal agent and forced to use discretion in order to protect the identities of those agents in the field, the detectives arrest a suspect highly connected with a Colombian drug cartel. As the case proceeds towards trial, Cabot is faced with death threats on herself and her family along with pressure to yield the case to federal authorities.
Season 6 Show All Episodes
One teenager is raped and another is imprisoned when they are thrown together by the manipulative adults in their lives whose sole motivations are celebrity and publicity for their own self-serving interests.
The entire SVU squad races against the clock to solve the puzzles and uncover clues scattered throughout NYC by a serial killer who is taunting them to find him and the next victims on his list.
Season 7 Show All Episodes
A little girl calls for help, claiming she's being held hostage, but the team has to keep her on the line to track her down.
When a girl is attacked, a young man is arrested. They later learn that he takes steroids which is what made him attack her. The guy turns out to be the son of a cop Stabler knows. The cop later attacks his son and it turns out he is also taking steroids. Stabler is forced to deal with issues involving his own father.
Season 8 Show All Episodes
Stabler and his new partner go after a possible serial rapist with the help of an unlikely victim from 30 years earlier.
A homeless man is suspected of murder. As the case unfolds, so do Munch's family secrets.
Season 9 Show All Episodes
Benson and Stabler arrest a high school teacher for having sex with one of her students, but the teacher alleges that the student raped her.
The only witness to a mother's beating is her mentally disabled daughter who is suffering from Williams Syndrome. The husband is an early suspect, but he is protected from prosecution because of the Patriot Act.
Season 10 Show All Episodes
Stabler is forced to confront his mother and the ghosts of his childhood when he learns that his daughter is in trouble with the law and in desperate need of psychiatric attention.
Stabler runs into an old friend when the team investigates the rape and murder of an astronaut.
Season 11 Show All Episodes
Stabler is attacked by a man that he helped put away 19 years earlier. When that man faces attempted murder charges, he claims that he was the victim because of the solitary confinement he faced during his sentence.
An alcoholic who fell off the wagon is charged in the brutal rape and murder of an abortion doctor. His defense argues that alcoholism is a disease, but why is ADA Paxton so bitterly opposed to the claim?
Season 12 Show All Episodes
A rape victim claims that she has been raped 4 times and harassed across the country by the same man, and the investigation reveals that she may not be his only victim.
A malnourished teenage girl is killed when she is hit by a car, and Benson and Stabler soon discover that she and her brother are victims in a human trafficking and sex trade scheme.
Season 13 Show All Episodes
A pregnant 13 year old girl from Washington Heights claims that the son of an ambassador raped her, but the accused goes missing before SVU can question him.
Detective Rollins believes that SVU has caught a serial rapist from one of her earlier cases in Georgia, but an impassioned request after a suicide attempt leads Amaro to think they may have the wrong person.
Season 14 Show All Episodes
An erotic novelist is sexually assaulted by a popular TV-show host who attempts to bring her book to life. The SVU detectives persuade her to press charges, but the investigation reveals a secret that could ruin the novelist's career and her case.
SVU is forced to work with Homeland Security--represented by former Major Case detective Eames--when a sex slave ring it is investigating is discovered to have ties to terrorism.
Season 15 Show All Episodes
A celebrity Southern chef shoots and kills a teenage African-American boy that she thought was a serial rapist. But was her life in danger, or was she just an over-reactive racist?
Cassidy is forced to infiltrate a corrupt precinct whose officers are suspected of raping young women during their shifts.
Season 16 Show All Episodes
While investigating the erratic behavior of a former teen actress, SVU discovers that she may have been the victim of sexual abuse by her former producer.
A lovelorn, socially awkward young man begins to exact revenge on the the women he believes has wronged him in his life, and his actions soon escalate to murder.
Season 17 Show All Episodes
A transgender teen dies after she is pushed off a bridge by another teen. The DA's office wants to try the aggressor as an adult and charge him with a hate crime, even though he appears to be genuinely remorseful.
SVU goes after Social Services after a pattern of falsified reports leads to the death of a young girl, but Benson is receiving a lot of political pressure to let it go and not open up a can of worms.
Season 18 Show All Episodes
SVU chooses to pursue a risky "rape by fraud" case involving a con artist who poses as a college admissions director to have sex with the mothers of prospective students.
An aspiring Olympic athlete claims she is a rape victim, but the publicity surrounding the case could threaten her Olympic future, and reveal some shocking details about her sordid personal life.
Season 19 Show All Episodes
Rollins and Carisi uncover 3 female suspects in the castration of a man who was left for dead. Langan has devastating news for Benson.
A teenager who was a victim of a vicious cyberbullying attack goes missing.
Season 20 Show All Episodes
After the rescue of a young girl from a sex trafficker, Benson and Stone must take drastic measures to reunite her with her mother. Meanwhile, Rollins decides to give her rocky relationship another chance.
As a string of break-in assaults grows more violent, the cops investigate an online incel group to identify a suspect.