Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

TV show ยท 1999

This report covers the series as a whole across all 28 seasons. SVU is a long-running police procedural built entirely around the investigation of sexually based crimes, and virtually every episode engages directly with rape, child abuse, or related violence at a level that is strong across the run.

Sexual violenceExplicit sexual contentSelf-harm & suicideHarm to childrenHarm to animalsPregnancy & infant lossMedical traumaGraphic violence & goreAbuse & manipulationSubstance abuse

Episodes to know about

Sexual violencerecurring across the seriesStrong

Each episode's central case almost always involves rape, sexual assault, or child sexual abuse described in verbal detail by witnesses, victims, and detectives; this is the baseline content level of every season.

Sexual violenceS09E15Strong

A main character goes undercover in a women's prison and is nearly orally raped by a prison guard before being rescued; one of the most explicitly depicted near-assault scenes in the series.

Sexual violenceS14E24Strong

A multi-episode arc (the William Lewis storyline) in which a serial rapist abducts, restrains, and terrorizes a main character; widely regarded as the most graphically violent storyline in the show's history.

9 more moments are in the full report. See all of them, checked against your own settings, in Little Later.