The Alice Springs CBD was saturated with police last night during the first night of an on-going special operation to prevent assaults and robberies in the town at night.

Police mounted the special operation after the town experienced a noticeable increase in late night attacks on people walking home alone.

Commander Michael White said whilst there had been a noticeable decline in property crime in the past few months, opportunistic offences such as these had increased.

During last night's operation 96 people were spoken to. Of these, 23 were youth and police made arrangements with youth service providers for them to be conveyed home.

Police also spoke to tourists in the CBD last night and ensured they made arrangements to get back to their accommodation safely as well.

"This campaign is a pro-active move on behalf of police to ensure that young people wandering the CBD in the early hours of the morning are not causing problems and are not putting themselves at risk either," Commander White said.

" The same applies to tourists. We spoke to 15 tourists in the CBD last night and made sure they had arrangements in place to get themselves to their accommodation safely."

Commander White said the special operation utilised both covert and highly visible police patrols.

"Sixteen litres of alcohol were tipped out during the operation and 14 people were taken into protective custody," Commander White said.

" This operation will continue as long as necessary and we feel sure that this proactive action will result in an end to the opportunistic offending we've experienced lately."