Child Welfare & Foster Care 28 Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episodes
Children in the care system, and the caseworkers and agencies that are meant to protect them.
- Season 2 · Episode 4
Legacy
A seven-year-old with a history of hidden injuries lies in a coma while the detectives sort through her father, stepfather, stepbrother and mother.
- Season 2 · Episode 11
Abuse
A celebrity’s son dies chasing the tutor suspected of molesting him, and the investigation turns to his younger sister, whose string of injuries points to a home without attention or care.
- 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 3 · Episode 9
Care
A five-year-old girl in foster care is found beaten to death, and suspicion moves from her birth mother to her foster brother to the women raising them.
- Season 5 · Episode 18
Careless
A six-year-old foster child is pronounced dead after a prayer service, and the investigation turns from a faith healer to the foster home and the caseworker who never checked on him.
- Season 8 · Episode 7
Underbelly
A paw-print tattoo on three murdered teenage girls leads Stabler and his new partner, Beck, into an underage prostitution ring and to the pimp who claims to love his girls.
- Season 8 · Episode 8
Cage
Two children found handcuffed in a crashed van lead the squad to a careless adoption broker and to foster parents whose coercive “rebirthing” therapy killed a nine-year-old girl.
- Season 8 · Episode 13
Loophole
Photos of a boy sent anonymously to SVU lead Benson to a building where a chemical company has been testing a pesticide on poor tenants.
- Season 8 · Episode 21
Pretend
A boy’s death in a staged fight leads to a manipulative best friend and a grieving girlfriend who has been posing as a teenager for years.
- Season 9 · Episode 8
Fight
The murder of a teenage girl leads from a cage fighter to two brothers raised in foster care, and Lake refuses to accept the confession that closes the case.
- Season 9 · Episode 11
Streetwise
The murder of a debutante in Central Park leads the detectives to a homeless “street family” whose self-appointed father punishes disrespect with death.
- Season 9 · Episode 15
Undercover
A teenage girl’s rape points to a guard at the women’s prison where her mother is held, and Benson goes in undercover as an inmate to unmask him.
- Season 10 · Episode 1
Trials
A foster child’s escape in a stolen van exposes his use in drug trials and leads Benson back to his birth mother’s unsolved rape, part of a pattern targeting single mothers.
- Season 10 · Episode 5
Retro
A baby abandoned with untreated AIDS leads SVU to a doctor who denies that HIV causes the disease, and to the families who followed his advice.
- Season 11 · Episode 19
Conned
A teenage hustler dies at a wedding carrying a runaway’s ID, and the runaway’s story exposes the psychiatrist who has controlled him for years.
- Season 12 · Episode 16
Spectacle
A student broadcasts a staged rape and holds a classmate hostage to force SVU to reopen the cold case of his little brother’s abduction.
- Season 13 · Episode 16
Child's Welfare
While Benson’s half brother fights the city for his children, an abandoned newborn leads the squad to a couple who hold young women captive to bear children.
- Season 15 · Episode 12
Jersey Breakdown
An underage strip-club waitress is raped by a VIP guest, and her case exposes a New Jersey prosecutor, a judge and a for-profit juvenile prison.
- Season 15 · Episode 24
Spring Awakening
As Amaro faces charges for beating an acquitted suspect, a sting on a robbery-rape ring leads Benson to the mother of the abandoned baby she rescued.
- Season 16 · Episode 1
Girls Disappeared
A teenage witness to the murder of Noah’s mother leads SVU into a Mexican trafficking ring that starts killing anyone who might talk.
- Season 17 · Episode 4
Institutional Fail
After a neglected toddler wanders into a precinct, SVU finds his sister starving in a cage and Barba goes after the Child Services caseworker and bosses who faked their home visits.
- Season 19 · Episode 1
Gone Fishin'
Fin brings a fugitive serial rapist back from Cuba, and his unorthodox arrest turns the prosecution into an international dispute.
- Season 19 · Episode 2
Mood
Detectives doubt a young woman’s report of a rape by a man in a Prince Charming mask until a second victim describes the same attacker.
- Season 20 · Episode 3
Zero Tolerance
A nine-year-old Guatemalan girl separated from her mother by border agents turns up in a New York sex trafficker’s apartment, and Benson goes after the federal officer who separated them.
- Season 22 · Episode 4
Sightless in a Savage Land
A 13-year-old foster child is found hemorrhaging after a forced abortion, and when her foster father is charged, her wounded veteran father shoots him outside court.
- Season 25 · Episode 1
Tunnel Blind
A 15-year-old girl vanishes from a store, Benson realizes she saw her in a van minutes later, and a sex doll made in the girl’s likeness leads the squad toward her abductor.
- Season 26 · Episode 10
Master Key
The search for a missing 16-year-old from a group home leads to a dead locksmith, a string of lies and the caseworker who was supposed to protect him.
- Season 27 · Episode 12
Hubris
Benson rescues a trafficked foster girl and comes to doubt the child-abuse pediatrician whose testimony took her from her father and sent another mother to jail.