Elliot Stabler Sr. is a fictional character, played by Christopher Meloni and one of the lead characters on the NBC police procedural series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Law & Order: Organized Crime.

Stabler was a lead for the first 12 seasons of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. As a result of Meloni's sudden departure from the cast at the end of the SVU twelfth season, Stabler abruptly retires from the police force off-screen during the SVU Season 13 premiere. In April 2020, it was announced that Meloni would reprise the role for a new SVU-spinoff series, where Stabler comes out of retirement to lead an NYPD organized crime task force. The series was later revealed to be titled Law & Order: Organized Crime.

Stabler was an NYPD detective 1st Grade with Manhattan's Special Victims Unit, which investigates sex crimes. He joined the NYPD in 1986 and was promoted to detective in 1989, In show continuity, Stabler became a detective with SVU in 1992. By 1998, Stabler held the prestigious rank of Detective First Grade and was assigned to mentor his new partner, Detective Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), a police officer with six years of experience who was transferred to the SVU as a newly promoted detective. The first episode of Special Victims Unit takes place one year into Stabler and Benson's partnership.

Stabler is dedicated to his job but often takes cases personally, thus affecting his judgment. Nonetheless, Stabler has a 97% case-closure rate as of 2007. His badge number is 6313. In 2002, Stabler stated that he makes $68,000 a year.

Stabler is Irish American and lives with his wife Kathy (Isabel Gillies) and five children (Maureen, Kathleen, Richard "Dickie", Elizabeth "Lizzie", and Elliot "Eli" Jr.). Stabler was born on October 20, 1966. He is devoted to his family and frequently mentions or thinks about them while working cases. He is also a practicing Catholic whose faith, sometimes, is tested by the cases on which he works.

Series creator Dick Wolf named SVU's two lead detectives after his son, Elliot, and his daughter, Olivia. Executive producer and head writer Neal Baer has explained that, in contrast to Benson – "the empathetic, passionate voice for these victims" – Stabler embodies "the rage we feel, the 'How can this happen?' feeling." Of their partnership, Baer assessed that: "They both represent the feelings that we feel simultaneously when we hear about these cases. That's why they work so well together."

Stabler was born on October 20, 1966, and raised in Bayside, Queens. His father, Joseph Stabler Sr., was a policeman who lost his job and pension after refusing to testify against a corrupt fellow officer, and who eventually died of cancer. Stabler had a difficult relationship with his father, who was physically and emotionally abusive. His mother, Bernadette (Ellen Burstyn), has bipolar disorder and once nearly killed her son during a manic episode. As a result, Stabler has "erased his childhood"; he rarely talks about his father and maintains little contact with his mother. He has two brothers, Randall (Dean Norris) and Joseph Jr. (Michael Trotter), and two sisters, Dee and Sharon.

He attended Bayside High School, where he played on the football team.