History Characters / LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnitCurrentMainCharacters

* FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse: His usual reaction to being told an offender's sob story.

* OutnumberedSibling: Sonny is the only son in a family of four children.

* RaisedCatholic: Of the still-religious variety. Comfortable referencing his faith in his job, and will sometimes make the sign of the cross on scene, usually if the squad finds a body. He's also clearly uncomfortable with the idea of abortion, but doesn't force that opinion on anyone, even his own sister.

* SexIsEvil: She's expressed some very judgmental attitudes about other people's sexual activity, even when it's consensual and legal. Sexual activity that she has arrested, expressed a desire to arrest, or harassed people for include (but are not limited to): drunk sex, lying to get sex, BDSM, sugar daddy arrangements, pornography, promiscuity ([[StrawFeminist when it's]] [[DoubleStandard a man]]), and AgeGapRomance.

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Often makes things worse for the victims when she gets personally involved. Fandom at one point had a dark running gag about how anyone Olivia gave her card to was doomed.

* AesopAmnesia:
** In the pilot, Olivia allowed her emotions to impede her ability to effectively investigate a case, resulting in her getting chewed out by Cragen who reminded her that police "don't get to the choose the victims" and that she had effectively used up her one strike with him.
*** Regardless, Olivia has repeatedly committed ethically questionable acts such as giving her brother money despite knowing that he was wanted for questioning in a rape investigation or illegally hacking a corporation's computer records to prove they were performing illegal chemical testing.
** Every time someone Olivia sent to jail turns out to have been innocent, she acts as if it has never happened before.

* RightForTheWrongReasons: In "Behave" she says her gut tells her that a man with an alibi is the rapist they're looking for. She does a background check and finds that the suspect is an upstanding citizen who is forty years old, has never been married, and has no children, to which Olivia says "What do you think, problems with women?" Of course the alibi was fake and the suspect was the rapist. But Olivia's gut is not magic and being single and childless at the age of forty is not evidence of a problem with the opposite sex.

* WellIntentionedExtremist: She wants to get justice for rape victims. She is willing to violate whatever rule, law, or constitutional right she thinks she has to in order to get it done.

** In one episode when investigating the alleged rape of a college student she's adamant that the suspect is guilty due to the victim having been drunk when they had sex, despite the fact that she initiated it and the suspect was just as intoxicated. She outright states "It's the man's responsibility to realize how drunk she is" apparently forgetting this would make the girl equally guilty.

* TheDilbertPrinciple: Despite her many epic screw-ups (see KarmaHoudini and KnightTemplar below) she's been promoted three times in quick succession.

* KarmaHoudini: In her police career she's been investigated by IAB multiple times, gave money to her half brother while she knew he was a fugitive, jeopardized cases by carrying on secret relationships with a reporter and a DA, brutalized suspects and her judgement gets called into question every other episode due to being unable to be objective. In real life she'd be lucky to still have a badge, let alone keep her position as detective. Here? She gets promoted to sergeant, then lieutenant (being placed in command of SVU), then captain, and is frequently praised as a good cop.

* ItsAllAboutMe: In "Justice Denied" when she finds out that a man she sent to prison was innocent and the confession she got him to make was false, her first thoughts are not that she destroyed an innocent man's life, but that she can no longer take pride in knowing that she was better than detectives she had seen do such things. Throughout the rest of the episode she spends a split-second thinking about the subsequent victims of the real rapist, and the bulk of the episode worried about how the case would affect her relationship with her boyfriend.

* InformedAttribute: She's frequently cited as being an extraordinary detective, and while some episodes do showcase this, more often she's displayed as a StrawFeminist or just an outright incompetent cop. She often refuses to consider the possibility that a suspect has been falsely accused, and overall spends more time focused on playing victim's advocate than on actual police work. She's also broken plenty of departmental rules and outright broken the law on several occasions(see KarmaHoudini below).

* KnightTemplar: All the innocent men she sent to prison for rapes they didn't commit, and by extension all the rapists who continued raping with impunity because someone else was in prison for their crimes, all the beaten suspects, all the ruined reputations, she's probably accumulated more victims than anyone she's ever arrested.

* BadassBeard: Goatee, but still counts.

* TeensAreMonsters /TheAtoner: Joe reveals to Fin in "Nightmares in Drill City", that he once got caught up in criminal activity and ended up changing his life around if the tortured victim lived (the victim did live).

* TeensAreMonsters
TheAtoner: Joe reveals to Fin in "Nightmares in Drill City", that he once got caught up in criminal activity and ended up changing his life around if the tortured victim lived (the victim did live).

* TeensAreMonsters/TheAtoner: Joe reveals to Fin in "Nightmares in Drill City", that he once got caught up in criminal activity and ended up changing his life around if the tortured victim lived (the victim did live).

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/svuseason22castphoto_0.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:The cast as of season 22. [[note]]Left to right: Katriona Tamin, Christian Garland, Olivia Benson, Dominick Carisi, Odafin Tutuola, and Amanda Rollins.[[/note]]]]

* InnocentlyInsensitive: In a [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness very early episode]], she referred to a trans woman as a "tranny," but otherwise showed no bigotry or judgement whatsoever. It'd now be ''severely'' OOC for Olivia to call someone that. However, this is likely a case of SocietyMarchesOn; it's now far more widely understood that "tranny" is a harmful and hurtful slur, so, naturally, Olivia would never use it.

* AbusiveParents: He tells a victim in "Nevr Turn Your Back on Them" that his father used to beat him with his belt. When his father died, he kept the belt.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Det. Katriona "Kat" Tamin]]
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/katorinatamin.PNG]]
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit''
!!!'''Played By:''' Creator/JamieGrayHyder

A fiery young cop of Lebanese descent originally from a rough neighbourhood, transferred from Vice into Special Victims after impressing Benson during a collaboration in catching a famous rapist and acting as Carisi's replacement.
----
* ActionGirl: Her first episode shows her willingness to get physical with perps. Of the three women on the squad, she's probably the best fighter.
* AloofDarkHairedGirl: She has little to no patience dealing with hard-ass suspects.
* BoobsOfSteel: She's well-endowed and willing to get physical with perps and does so skillfully, more than Olivia or Amanda (it helps that she's younger).
* [[spoiler:DisneyDeath]]: [[spoiler: She gets shot during a raid and flatlines in the ambulance, but ultimately survives.]]
* FairCop: She's a good-looking and youthful detective for the NYPD, joining the ranks of Rollins in that regard.
* NewMeat: As of Season 21. She has a lot of issues getting used to the CrapsackWorld of Special Victims, and the team has to teach her how to correctly get information from victims without being too brazen. She does get better though.
* StatuesqueStunner: A FairCop standing at 5'9" -- she's even taller than Benson, who isn't exactly short.
* TwoferTokenMinority: She's the second Asian main character in the show's history since George Huang's departure in Season 12. Like Huang she is also LGBT+, in her case being bisexual. More specifically, Kat is the first Middle Eastern main character. Of course she's also the first woman who fits into those categories as well.
* VitriolicBestBuds: With Carisi in particular, as she often gets on his case (pun intended) when he won't give the squad what they want, e.g. a warrant. At one point she lampshades this when they wind up on the same side of an argument by saying, "Hey, I'm on your side this time!" That said, though, she doesn't take kindly to it when he gets hurt, and does seem to understand that he's just doing his job. She doesn't ''like'' it, but she gets it.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Deputy Chief Christian Garland]]
[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/law_and_order_svu_garland_demore_barnes.jpg]]
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit''
!!!'''Played By:''' Creator/DemoreBarnes

* CategoryTraitor: Has been accused of betraying the black community for being a cop, and has been accused of betraying cops by advocating for reform.
* FrontlineGeneral: Garland is perfectly willing to go in the field, and in his first appearance goes undercover to catch a SerialRapist.
* PromotionToOpeningTitles: Was a RecurringCharacter in Season 21, but will be part of the main cast in the upcoming season 22.

** In the pilot, Olivia allowed her emotions to impede her ability to effectively investigate a case, resulting in her getting chewed out by Cragen who reminded her that police "Don't get to the choose the victims," and that she had effectively used up her one strike with him.

* BerserkButton: She despises people who are willing to defend rapists. However she doesn't get angry at those who do not know they are defending one but it's the matter someone has the gull to protect a sadistic criminal when they know they've done wrong.

* {{Hypocrite}}: Claims to believe in reform and police accountability. Still he allows Benson to remain unpunished and in command of SVU, despite her blatantly committing police misconduct for over twenty years. While at first this could have been justified by the fact that it happened before he was put in charge of SVU, he didn't even impose any consequences on her when she allowed her old partner, who has a history of brutality, to interrogate a suspect in his own wife's murder which ended with him attempting to beat a confession out of the (innocent) suspect.

* [[spoiler:DisneyDeath]]: [[spoiler: She gets shot during a raid and flatlines in the ambulance, but ultimately survives.]]

** In another episode she finds out a woman suspected of killing her baby became pregnant while in an incestuous(but consensual) relationship with her own father. Olivia's opinion immediately does a 180 and she declares the girl a victim, wanting to charge him with rape despite their being no evidence the relationship wasn't consensual, and then demanding the father be charged with incest before being reminded they're BOTH guilty of incest and the girl would have to be charged too, causing her to promptly drop it.