Criminal Intent follows The NYPD Manhattan "Major Case Squad", a force of detectives who investigate high-profile cases (in most cases, murder, kidnappings or major robberies), such as those involving VIPs, local government officials and employees, the financial industry, and the art world.
This series in the franchise is notable for its heavy focus on the motives and actions of the criminals, paralleling the investigation with scenes of the suspects' lives that show the audience circumstances that the investigators can, at most, only attempt to deduce. Each episode features a cold open of the victim and suspects in (at most) a few days leading up to the crime; these scenes are presented without context, and maintain suspense as to the perpetrator's identity and often motive, until the ensuing investigation reveals these. However, some episodes reveal the offender at the start, while leaving out other key details and presenting a puzzle, over which the detectives labor, and agonize, to discover; thereby they provide the plot conflict of the episode, and (usually) the resolution of the case: solving the crime, and (likewise) insinuating a plea, or verdict, of "guilty". Occasionally, however, either the detectives resign themselves to conviction being infeasible-or an acquittal or dismissal dramatizes the limits of criminal prosecution. Unlike other Law & Order series, most Criminal Intent episodes end with the Detectives eliciting confessions, rather than continuing to the trial phase.