[2] Cragen served as a Green Beret in the U.S. Army Special Forces in the Vietnam War before joining the New York Police Department,[3] where he was a homicide detective partnered with Max Greevey (George Dzundza).

[4] Cragen had been married to a flight attendant named Marge (Ellen Tobie) and the two had no children,[5] although, in a continuity error, an early Law & Order episode indicated they had a teenage child.

Cragen finally hit rock bottom when he pulled his service revolver on a taxi driver while in a drunken rage; horrified, he quit drinking, joined AA, and has been sober ever since.

However, his skills as a manager of detectives and his long tenure as a captain have earned him the command of multiple prestigious units, including the Anti-Corruption Task Force and the Manhattan SVU.

Although his departure is not immediately explained,[13] it is established in the fifth season episode "Bad Faith" that he has transferred to head of the Anti-Corruption Task Force.

With Logan's help, Cragen discovers the identity of the corrupt officer: his former detective, and trusted friend, Tony Profaci (John Fiore).

It is said in a Season 1 episode of SVU, that Cragen took control of the unit in 1995, but in the Exiled movie, he is still a part of the Anti-Corruption Task Force (via tape recording he shows Logan).

At some point before the events of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Cragen's wife Marge, a flight attendant, is killed in a plane crash.

[16] Florek said upon reprising the role on SVU that he and the show's producers crafted a back story in which Marge's death led Cragen to start drinking again, and that, in his loneliness, he solicited prostitutes.

[15] In 1999, the character appeared in the spinoff Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, in which he heads a bureau dedicated to solving sex crimes.

Cragen and his detectives later determined that the wife of the boy's biological father killed his mother and gave the baby to the adoption agency, where he was given a home.

[18] In the fifth season episode "Criminal", a homicide investigation leads to a suspect named Javier Vega (James McDaniel), a man Cragen arrested for murder in the 1970s who has since reformed and become a criminology professor.

[22] Cragen is forced to transfer to the office of Chief of Detectives and cede control of his precinct to the newly promoted Sergeant John Munch (Richard Belzer).

The transfer is short-lived, however, as Cragen's command is restored after Munch allows a suspect (Cynthia Nixon) faking dissociative identity disorder to be released into her sister's care, only for her to kill her parents.

[26] The season 13 finale, "Rhodium Nights", closes with Cragen awakening in bed to find the body of a young female escort beside him, her throat cut, and his hands covered in blood.

[27] In the Season 14 premiere, Bureau Chief ADA of the Public Integrity Unit, Paula Foster (Paget Brewster), investigates Cragen in the murder of the escort.

[29] In the Season 15 episode "Internal Affairs", Cragen asks Benson to take the Sergeant's Exam and remarks that he is approaching the mandatory retirement age, numbering the days he has left with SVU.

He explains that he is leaving to join his girlfriend, Eileen Switzer (Mel Harris), on a six-month cruise around the world, which would take him to his mandatory retirement date.

[31] In season 16, Cragen returns for the episode "Perverted Justice", in which he helps Sergeant Benson and Defense Attorney Bayard Ellis (Andre Braugher) look into a decades-old rape.

[36] Florek said during the formative seasons of Law & Order, the cast and crew had a great deal of integrity and were dedicated to making something different, and that filming could be unpredictable as a result.

He also believed the producers and crew were not giving him enough direction and guidance in forming the character, pointing out that he did not learn Cragen was an alcoholic until several weeks into filming.

Florek was ultimately terminated from the series after the third season upon orders from Don Ohlmeyer, NBC's West Coast president, to add more female cast members to the show.

When Wolf invited him to join the permanent cast of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, the television comedy series The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer, in which Florek played Abraham Lincoln, had just been cancelled.