Has Anyone Been Prosecuted For Failure To Register With Selective Service

U.S. | WARNING IS ISSUED ON Draft SIGNUP

https://www.nytimes.com/1982/03/26/us/warning-is-issued-on-draft-signup.html

Alert IS ISSUED ON Typhoon SIGNUP

March 26, 1982

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March 26, 1982

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Thomas 1000. Turnage, the director of the Selective Service System, said today that more than 500,000 immature men withal had not registered for a possible war machine draft, and he warned that the Authorities would follow through on plans to prosecute some of them.

Testifying before the House Military Committee'southward subcommittee on military machine personnel and bounty, Mr. Turnage emphasized that a entrada to increase registrations had been highly successful, with 880,000 men registering in a recent seven-calendar week period.

These registrants included men who failed to sign up before Jan. 7. They were given a grace period, until Feb. 28, to annals without fear of prosecution.

Despite the improvement, Mr. Turnage indicated that he expected the Selective Service to begin referring cases to the Justice Section early this summer. Failure to register is a felony punishable by upwardly to five years in prison house and a $10,000 fine. 'Big Influx' Expected

Mr. Turnage told the subcommittee that he did non believe hundreds of thousands of young men would be prosecuted considering, once the enforcement plan began, ''I believe we'll take a large influx of people registering.''

''Our objective is not to prosecute or incarcerate or have punitive activeness confronting any individual,'' he said. ''Our objective is to get them to register.''

President Carter reinstituted draft registration in July 1980. According to figures released by Mr. Turnage today, 7,792,000 men, born from 1960 to 1964, take registered. Mr. Turnage said that the Selective Service estimated that 535,000 men, or 6.4 percent, had not complied with the constabulary.

The law requires men to register at whatever post function 30 days earlier or afterwards their 18th birthdays. Most Believed to Be Unaware

Mr. Turnage testified that his agency believed that nigh young men who had not registered were unaware of the requirement. The agency has also taken the position that many men had failed to register because of uncertainty over whether President Reagan would abolish the registration plan.

In late April or early May, Mr. Turnage said, the Selective Service will begin using computers to match its registration lists confronting lists of immature men who hold Social Security cards to identify men who have non registered and provide a more precise number of those who have not registered.

He also said that his bureau would ask the Internal Revenue Service to provide addresses of men suspected of non registering. Before the grace period, the Selective Service sent 183 names of men who had not registered to the Justice Department. Mr. Turnage said the initial prosecutions would be brought against those men if information technology was determined that they knowingly failed to comply.

David E. Landau of the American Civil Liberties Matrimony said afterwards that the computer matchup of registration and Social Security lists ''amounted to a Government computer surveillance arrangement.'' He said that the Regime had non ''established the legitimacy of the registration system in the minds of the youth'' and that it was attempting to ''intimidate people into registering.''