Child Sexual Abuse 63 Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episodes
Cases of children abused by relatives, teachers, clergy or strangers, and the adults who look away.
- Season 1 · Episode 2
A Single Life
A writer’s fatal fall from her apartment window leads the detectives to her psychologist, a TV anchor and a father whose abuse she spent her adult life escaping.
- Season 1 · Episode 21
Nocturne
A respected neighborhood piano teacher is exposed by his own photographs, and the case rests on a former student whose abuse was taped for years and who has begun to repeat it.
- Season 2 · Episode 1
Wrong Is Right
A defense-industry analyst is found shot and burned and his missing teenage ward confesses, while a police commission reviews Stabler and Jeffries over their psychological evaluations.
- Season 2 · Episode 16
Runaway
When a narcotics sergeant takes hostages to find his runaway daughter, the squad hunts for her through New York’s rave scene while Internal Affairs questions every step of the search.
- Season 2 · Episode 20
Pique
The rape and murder of a software company’s personnel chief lead to a security guard who idolized her, a string of hatpin attacks, and a confession that exposes his mother’s abuse.
- Season 3 · Episode 18
Guilt
A serial child molester slips toward freedom when his young accuser stops cooperating, and Cabot risks her career with an illegal search to stop him.
- Season 3 · Episode 23
Silence
The killing of a teenage runaway in a Manhattan church exposes a priest’s past, a diocese’s hush money and a secret bound by the seal of confession.
- Season 4 · Episode 11
Damaged
A little girl wounded in an apparent robbery turns out to have been raped, and the hero clerk and her troubled adoptive sister become the focus of the case.
- Season 4 · Episode 15
Pandora
The murder of a woman who posed online as a child to catch predators sends Stabler after a kidnapped teenager in Prague and a child-pornography network in New York.
- Season 5 · Episode 5
Serendipity
The deaths of a young mother and her newborn lead to a dermatologist with a hidden past and a child predator still at large.
- Season 5 · Episode 19
Sick
A 12-year-old’s violent online fantasies lead detectives to a wealthy toy heir who bought his family’s silence, and then to a second accuser whose story is not what it seems.
- Season 5 · Episode 25
Head
A restroom voyeur’s hidden camera captures a sixth grader being sexually assaulted, and the trail leads to his school principal and a tumor in her brain.
- Season 6 · Episode 11
Contagious
A medical exam after a car crash reveals that a nine-year-old has been abused, but the man she names may not be the one who hurt her.
- Season 6 · Episode 15
Hooked
A teenager found dead with her cousin’s ID turns out to have been selling sex and acting in pornography, and she was HIV positive.
- Season 7 · Episode 3
911
A girl calls 911 from a locked room, and Benson spends the night on the line while a cloned, rerouted phone keeps the squad from finding her.
- Season 7 · Episode 21
Web
A young boy’s abuse leads detectives to his teenage brother’s child pornography website and the paying predators who help him disappear.
- Season 8 · Episode 6
Infiltrated
While undercover with environmental activists in Oregon, Benson investigates the murder of a pharmaceutical worker and uncovers his secret, as Novak’s rape case in New York stalls without her testimony.
- Season 9 · Episode 1
Alternate
A woman with multiple personalities is suspected of harming the baby in her care, and her parents’ murder puts an insanity defense to the test.
- Season 9 · Episode 13
Unorthodox
The rape of a young boy turns suspicion on his Hasidic community until the trail leads to a bullied 14-year-old whose lawyer blames a sex-saturated culture.
- Season 10 · Episode 2
Confession
A teenager asks SVU for help with his attraction to his little stepbrother, and the case widens to a website for pedophiles, a furious stepfather and a killing.
- Season 10 · Episode 15
Lead
The murder of a convicted pediatrician brings back ADA Alexandra Cabot and leads to a young man whose disability may have been caused by poisoned toys.
- Season 11 · Episode 5
Hardwired
A boy’s sexual abuse leads SVU from his wrestling coach to his stepfather and then to the leader of a group that campaigns for pedophiles’ “rights.”
- Season 12 · Episode 2
Bullseye
When a starved girl is raped near a children’s club, a neighborhood anti-predator group and its eager volunteer push the squad toward a registered offender.
- Season 12 · Episode 12
Possessed
A masked attack on a young woman reveals she was the child in a notorious series of abuse films, and the man acquitted of making them still walks free.
- Season 12 · Episode 15
Flight
A 12-year-old French girl’s rape claim against a billionaire defense contractor uncovers a network of girls brought to his massage room, as he uses his connections to fight back.
- Season 12 · Episode 20
Totem
A psychiatrist filling in for Huang convinces Benson and Stabler that a ten-year-old’s rape and murder was committed by a woman, and the trail leads to a family of abused daughters.
- Season 13 · Episode 2
Personal Fouls
A former player’s accusation against a revered basketball coach runs into the statute of limitations, forcing SVU to seek help from a guarded pro star.
- Season 13 · Episode 8
Educated Guess
A drug-addled prisoner says he saw a rape inside a psychiatric hospital, and the patient who denies it turns out to be hiding years of abuse by a relative.
- Season 14 · Episode 6
Friending Emily
When a 14-year-old tourist vanishes from a college party and turns up on a live darknet stream, the squad tracks her captor through the girls he took before her.
- Season 14 · Episode 8
Lessons Learned
A retired teacher’s suicide leads the squad to decades of sexual abuse at an elite boys’ school, and to a board determined to protect the institution.
- Season 14 · Episode 10
Presumed Guilty
Fin’s ex-brother-in-law is jailed for beating a priest he says he rescued, and clearing him uncovers a parish secret kept under the seal of confession.
- Season 14 · Episode 13
Monster's Legacy
An attack on a gymnastics coach leads SVU to a camp director who abused boys for decades, and to one of his victims awaiting execution in Ohio.
- Season 15 · Episode 2
Imprisoned Lives
A boy abandoned in Times Square leads the squad to a Brooklyn basement where a man held three women for years, as Benson tests whether she is ready to return.
- Season 15 · Episode 7
Dissonant Voices
A four-year-old’s claim that his music teacher, a TV singing coach, abused him snowballs into nine accusations before SVU learns who scripted the story.
- Season 15 · Episode 14
Wednesday's Child
A mother secretly gives away her troubled adopted son through an online broker, and SVU races to find him before his insulin runs out.
- Season 15 · Episode 19
Downloaded Child
A young mother who left her six-year-old locked in alone for two days is revealed to be the child in widely traded abuse videos, and Barba uses federal law to make the men who downloaded them pay.
- Season 15 · Episode 22
Reasonable Doubt
In the middle of a bitter divorce, a celebrated TV producer faces charges that he abused his young daughter, and the case plays out in the press as well as in court.
- Season 16 · Episode 3
Producer's Backend
A troubled former child star is charged with abusing a 15-year-old, and her story leads SVU to the producer who abused her and to a girl’s drowning.
- Season 16 · Episode 7
Chicago Crossover
Chicago P.D.’s Voight, Lindsay and Halstead team up with SVU to stop a ring streaming child abuse online, a case tied to Lindsay’s runaway half brother.
- Season 16 · Episode 19
Granting Immunity
An investigation into explicit photos from a teen party at a Tribeca school uncovers parents who faked vaccination records, as a measles outbreak puts Benson’s son in the hospital.
- Season 17 · Episode 7
Patrimonial Burden
When the 13-year-old daughter of a famous religious reality-TV family turns up pregnant, SVU uncovers abuse that her family and church have kept hidden.
- Season 17 · Episode 15
Collateral Damages
A sting on a celebrity boxer leads SVU to a child pornography ring and to the NYPD’s own deputy commissioner for public information.
- Season 18 · Episode 17
Real Fake News
A conspiracy website’s false story about a congressman and a child sex ring endangers a restaurant and SVU’s own families, but the frame behind it leads to a real trafficking operation.
- Season 19 · Episode 14
Chasing Demons
After his courtroom outburst frees an accused child molester, Cassidy is suspected of killing him, and Benson risks her career to clear him.
- Season 20 · Episode 10
Alta Kockers
The murder of a teenage memoirist exposes a literary hoax and leads SVU to two reclusive elderly brothers, their mother’s frozen body and a decades-old secret.
- Season 20 · Episode 11
Plastic
A young woman’s rape complaint against a celebrity plastic surgeon and his girlfriend leads SVU to a teenager who disappeared 14 years earlier and a body hidden in a wall.
- Season 20 · Episode 13
A Story of More Woe
A teenager confesses to killing her father to protect her younger sister from abuse, but the story points SVU toward the helpful neighbor who has taken the girls in.
- Season 20 · Episode 16
Facing Demons
A young man’s suicide leads SVU to the magic-shop clerk who abused him as a boy and who once coached Brian Cassidy in youth baseball.
- Season 20 · Episode 21
Exchange
An exchange student’s rape by a cabdriver leads the squad to discover that her host father groomed her and her sister into believing their own father had abused them.
- Season 20 · Episode 24
End Game
When a teenage girl’s body falls into the Hudson, Benson ties the death to Rob Miller, and Stone bends the rules to put him away.
- Season 21 · Episode 13
Redemption in Her Corner
Kat suspects a boxing coach of sleeping with a 16-year-old fighter, but when her rival knocks him out and he dies, SVU uncovers abuse in the rival’s own home.
- Season 21 · Episode 18
Garland's Baptism by Fire
A church bookkeeper caught embezzling accuses Reverend Delman Chase, Deputy Chief Garland’s pastor and mentor, of paying off teenage girls he sexually abused.
- Season 23 · Episode 11
Burning with Rage Forever
After a predator lures an eight-year-old from home through an online game, the boy’s uncle stabs the man and is hailed as a hero until SVU learns what he has hidden.
- Season 23 · Episode 21
Confess Your Sins to Be Free
A rapist strikes women who confessed their affairs to a priest, and Carisi’s childhood friend in the clergy will not say why he was caught at the scene of a trap.
- Season 25 · Episode 7
Probability of Doom
Two dismembered child predators lead SVU to a pair of sisters, and to a young woman who has spent years shielding her little sister from their father.
- Season 25 · Episode 10
Combat Fatigue
After a juror’s outburst forces a mistrial, Carisi retries Maddie Flynn’s kidnapper, who fires his lawyer, makes bail and defends himself.
- Season 26 · Episode 2
Excavation
A woman’s discovery of her stepfather’s old journal leads SVU to investigate a retired federal judge for abusing her when she was eight.
- Season 26 · Episode 12
Calculated
What looks like a minor case of a teenager with a classmate’s nude photo grows into a sting on dozens of predators, and Silva fears one of them is innocent.
- Season 26 · Episode 18
The Accuser
A welding shop owner is found sexually assaulted with a date carved into his back, and the investigation uncovers his abuse of a teenage apprentice and a girl whose case against him failed two decades earlier.
- Season 27 · Episode 4
Clickbait
A 13-year-old’s near-fatal pregnancy and a wave of fake nude images lead the squad to a jealous classmate and then to the AI company whose app made the pictures.
- Season 27 · Episode 14
Frequency
A baby monitor intercepts a live feed of a caged, non-speaking boy, and the squad races to find him while Griffin tries to reach him.
- Season 27 · Episode 18
Gimmick
The murder of a former teenage fight fan leads SVU to the aging champion he said abused him, and to the agent who paid for his silence.
- Season 27 · Episode 19
Impropriety
A 16-year-old dropped outside a hospital after a party leads SVU to a retired judge’s daughter who drugged her son’s friends and watched them on a hidden camera.
More themes: Crimes
- Blackmail & Extortion
- Child Abuse & Neglect
- Child Murders
- Con Artists
- Cults
- Date Rape & Consent
- Domestic Violence
- Gang Rape
- Grooming
- Gun Violence
- Hate Crimes
- Hostage Standoffs
- Human Trafficking
- Incest
- Kidnapping & Abduction
- Male Victims
- Murder for Hire
- Online Predators
- Prison Rape
- Prostitution & Sex Work
- Serial Killers
- Serial Rapists
- Stalking & Voyeurism
- Statutory Rape
- Vigilantes & Revenge
- War Crimes