Domestic Violence 37 Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episodes
Abuse between partners and spouses, and why victims so often stay or recant.
- Season 1 · Episode 4
Hysteria
The murder of a college student dressed for a night out is folded into a string of attacks on prostitutes, until the detectives catch a serial killer who insists she was not his victim.
- Season 1 · Episode 13
Disrobed
When a judge celebrated for protecting women is shot dead in his car, the detectives uncover a scheme trading parole decisions for money and sex.
- Season 2 · Episode 7
Asunder
A woman accuses her police sergeant husband of rape, but a history of mutual violence and her own recantation make the case a test of whether marital rape can be proved in court.
- Season 3 · Episode 12
Protection
A boy shot in a drive-by is murdered in his hospital bed, and the detectives must protect his mother and brother, the only witnesses against a ruthless drug dealer.
- Season 4 · Episode 18
Desperate
A six-year-old boy is the only witness to his stepmother’s rape and murder, and the detectives must reach him while his father, the prime suspect, keeps him from them.
- Season 5 · Episode 7
Choice
A pregnant restaurant owner attacked by her estranged husband ends up in court herself when he challenges her right to an abortion and then her drinking during the pregnancy.
- Season 6 · Episode 23
Goliath
Two police officers back from Afghanistan attack their wives, and the trail leads to an antimalarial drug the Army gave them.
- Season 7 · Episode 4
Ripped
When a teenage pitcher attacks his best friend, Stabler’s loyalty to the boy’s father, his old partner, collides with the case, and steroids prove to be at the heart of it.
- Season 8 · Episode 11
Burned
A mother accuses her estranged husband of rape during a bitter custody fight, and the case divides Benson and Stabler until it ends in fire.
- Season 10 · Episode 8
Persona
A battered wife’s rape case leads Benson to the gentle neighbor downstairs, who has spent 34 years hiding from a murder charge for killing her own abusive husband.
- Season 10 · Episode 16
Ballerina
When a landlord linked to a double murder falls from his Park Avenue window, suspicion turns to his wife, a retired dancer, and the younger man she calls her nephew.
- Season 10 · Episode 20
Crush
An abused teenager who sent nude photos of herself is prosecuted for child pornography, and her harsh sentence leads SVU to a family court judge who profits from locking children up.
- Season 11 · Episode 13
P.C.
SVU hunts the man who raped and killed a lesbian artist while clashing with an abrasive activist who accuses the police of indifference.
- Season 12 · Episode 11
Pop
A boy’s death on a carousel exposes a ring of fathers betting on fights between their sons, and Stabler tries to free a teenage fighter from his abusive stepfather.
- Season 13 · Episode 5
Missing Pieces
A Buffalo couple report their baby stolen with their car on Halloween, and SVU works to learn what really happened to him on the drive to New York.
- Season 14 · Episode 9
Dreams Deferred
When a gunman goes on a killing spree, the squad turns to the aging prostitute he has visited for 25 years and tries to pull her off the street once he is stopped.
- Season 14 · Episode 15
Deadly Ambition
Rollins kills her pregnant sister’s abusive ex to stop an attack, then finds herself charged with murder as the sister’s motives come into question.
- Season 14 · Episode 16
Funny Valentine
A teenage pop star beaten by her famous boyfriend refuses to testify, and her loyalty to him draws her mentor and then herself into danger.
- 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 16 · Episode 8
Spousal Privilege
A leaked video shows a retired football star knocking out the mother of his son, and SVU pursues the case although she refuses to cooperate.
- Season 16 · Episode 12
Padre Sandunguero
When Amaro’s estranged father is accused of fracturing his young fiancée’s skull the night before their wedding, Nick becomes the key witness to what she first said.
- Season 17 · Episode 23
Heartfelt Passages
Benson and Sgt. Dodds help the wife of an accused corrections officer leave him, and the visit becomes a hostage standoff that costs Dodds his life.
- Season 18 · Episode 1
Terrorized
A lost boy who pulls a gun on Benson leads SVU to a planned shooting in Central Park, and his mother, charged with murder, says the attackers raped her for years.
- Season 18 · Episode 12
No Surrender
An Army Ranger chosen as the face of a recruiting tour is beaten and raped after a night of underground fighting, and the man she identifies has an alibi.
- Season 18 · Episode 21
Sanctuary
With their key witness deported, SVU pressures a suspect’s undocumented wife to break his alibi, and Benson must decide whether to back a grieving mother’s changed account at trial.
- Season 19 · Episode 19
Sunk Cost Fallacy
A woman and her young daughter disappear after a frantic phone call, and the case against the husband collapses when Benson finds them alive under Alex Cabot’s protection.
- Season 20 · Episode 14
Part 33
As the squad waits to testify in the trial of a woman who killed her emotionally abusive police officer husband, the detectives argue over how far their testimony should help her.
- Season 21 · Episode 5
At Midnight in Manhattan
Over one weekend, the short-staffed squad and Carisi juggle three new cases: a battered wife, a woman attacked after a ride-hail pickup and a transgender sex worker assaulted by a wealthy client.
- Season 21 · Episode 20
The Things We Have to Lose
As Sir Tobias Moore’s long-delayed trial nears, the squad struggles to keep his accusers on board while Tamin hunts a rapist who walked free, Rollins tries to rescue a troubled teen and Fin confronts an abusive father.
- Season 22 · Episode 2
Ballad of Dwight and Irena
When an abusive boyfriend is electrocuted in his bathtub, his girlfriend’s bullied 14-year-old son confesses, but the squad suspects he is covering for his mother.
- Season 22 · Episode 15
What Can Happen In the Dark
Garland’s neighbor turns up badly hurt, and the squad comes to suspect his wife sexually assaulted him, a case few will believe.
- Season 23 · Episode 22
A Final Call at Forlini's Bar
A battered wife stabs her abusive husband in the back, and Barba defends her against Carisi as Benson weighs her feelings about him and Stabler.
- Season 24 · Episode 3
Mirror Effect
A pop star accuses her equally famous boyfriend of assault, then of rape, and the case plays out in court and on social media.
- Season 25 · Episode 4
Duty to Report
When Chief McGrath’s 15-year-old daughter says she was assaulted at a party she threw, Benson takes the case and must report McGrath’s threat against a suspect.
- Season 26 · Episode 6
Rorschach
An FBI agent asks SVU to take over an attack on two travel influencers at a remote campsite, and the gap between the couple’s online videos and their real lives points the squad toward one of the victims.
- Season 26 · Episode 9
First Light
A video of a professor’s wife in bed with a stranger she cannot remember leads SVU to an online forum and to the man who arranged the encounter.
- Season 26 · Episode 22
Post-Rage
After a psychiatrist is raped and nearly blinded in her office, the squad works through her patient list while a killer who targets therapists strikes again.
More themes: Crimes
- Blackmail & Extortion
- Child Abuse & Neglect
- Child Murders
- Child Sexual Abuse
- Con Artists
- Cults
- Date Rape & Consent
- 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