Christian De La Fuente spends his days breaking into other people's cars, authorities say, and he's just the sort of person Dallas police want to get off the streets with an initiative that kicked off Wednesday.

They say 18-year-old De La Fuente's case shows the pitfalls of a system that often releases property crime offenders almost as soon as police arrest them. Now, a task force of dozens of officers will swarm areas where there's a lot of property crime to try to catch burglars in the act.

On Tuesday, De La Fuente told detectives that he'd broken into dozens of cars over the last three months. Less than 24 hours later, after he was booked into jail, De La Fuente was released on $1,000 bond.

"It's ridiculous," said Assistant Chief Charles Cato, who supervises the strategic deployment bureau. "This guy's job is to go out and break into cars. He's the type of offender we're looking at. When people like this are not in jail, they're going to be stealing something."

Chief Magistrate Judge Boyd Patterson said magistrate judges simply carry out the will of the county criminal court judges who oversee misdemeanor cases.

Patterson said the $1,000 bond on which De La Fuente was released was actually about twice as high as what misdemeanor bonds are usually set at.

"The misdemeanor judges have said they want misdemeanor bonds set at $500," Patterson said. "We set bonds according to the schedule set by the county criminal court judges on misdemeanor cases ... We simply act as they instruct in the handling of cases in their courts."

Presiding County Criminal Court Judge Peggy Hoffman could not be reached for comment.

In Dallas, property crime accounts for about 85 percent of all crime. Property crime is down about 7 percent so far this year. The decline is for a variety of different reasons, including changes in the way the department counts some crimes. And the department doesn't want to lose ground during the upcoming holiday season.

The initiative – dubbed Operation Impact – is slated to run for the rest of the year and involves about 100 officers. It includes about 60 patrol officers as well as detectives from the gang, narcotics and fugitive units.

"We're putting them where most of the property crimes are happening, particularly BMVs," said Deputy Chief Brian Harvey, who oversees the department's division that includes the gang unit, crime analysis and the Fusion Center.

Task force officers also are serving arrest warrants for property-related crimes, he said. Authorities plan to track what happens to offenders such as De La Fuente.

De La Fuente came to the attention of law officers Tuesday as they watched the parking lot of a North Dallas fitness center – one of the city's top 10 locations for property crime.

According to police, De La Fuente used a screwdriver to punch out a truck's door lock to get inside but couldn't find anything he wanted to steal. Police followed De La Fuente and arrested him as he prepared to break into another vehicle, records state.

During questioning, De La Fuente told detectives that he worked along North Central Expressway between Interstate 635 and downtown, looking for vehicles to burglarize.

The officer who took De La Fuente to jail told supervisors that he requested a higher bond on De La Fuente because he was a repeat offender, but was told by the judge, "It is only a BMV," parlance for burglary of a motor vehicle.

Norbert Gamez, the 75-year-old truck owner, said it's going to cost about $400 out of pocket to repair the lock.

"It's very bad," Gamez said. "He's out, and he's going to do it again."