 Like its sister series _"Law & Order" (1990)_ (qv), SVU episodes are  often advertised as being "ripped from the headlines". Many people  mistake this to mean that they are based on real events. In reality,  the slogan is referring to the shows practice of coming up with  stories that are partially inspired by recent headlines. However,  only a fairly small portion of the episode will resemble the real  incident or incidents that it is inspired by. There might be a few  scenes that resemble a well known headline while the majority of the  episode goes in a different direction or there could be one  character that is based on a famous individual but the circumstances  the person encounters are largely made up.