Law & Order: Special Victims Unit was the first of several successful spin-offs of producer / creator Dick Wolf-long NBC series Law & Order. Instead of following established law and order formula to focus on "nuts and bolts" of detecting a wide variety of criminals and bring them to justice, the spin-off series, title, zero in one Greater New York justice system in the City: Special Victims Unit, or SVU, which focused on gender-based crimes such as rape, incest, pedophilia, torture and murder series. Also, while the original Law & Order was essentially a series focusing on the history, personality of the main characters of Special Victims Unit often dictated the direction of the investigation and the results of the case.