{
  "url": "https://openlegislation.uk/criminal-justice-act-1948/section-1",
  "json_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/criminal-justice-act-1948/section-1.json",
  "legislation": "ukpga/Geo6/11-12/58",
  "legislation_title": "Criminal Justice Act 1948",
  "legislation_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/criminal-justice-act-1948",
  "path": "section/1",
  "kind": "section",
  "number": "1",
  "heading": "Abolition of penal servitude, hard labour and prison divisions.",
  "text": "(1) No person shall be sentenced by a court to penal servitude; and every enactment conferring power on a court to pass a sentence of penal servitude in any case shall be construed as conferring power to pass a sentence of imprisonment for a term not exceeding the maximum term of penal servitude for which a sentence could have been passed in that case immediately before the commencement of this Act.\n(2) No person shall be sentenced by a court to imprisonment with hard labour; and every enactment conferring power on a court to pass a sentence of imprisonment with hard labour in any case shall be construed as conferring power to pass a sentence of imprisonment for a term not exceeding the term for which a sentence of imprisonment with hard labour could have been passed in that case immediately before the commencement of this Act; and so far as any enactment requires or permits prisoners to be kept to hard labour it shall cease to have effect.\n(3) So far as any enactment provides that a person sentenced to imprisonment or committed to prison is or may be directed to be treated as an offender of a particular division, or to be placed in a separate division, it shall cease to have effect.",
  "extent": null,
  "status": null,
  "version": "current",
  "annotations": [],
  "outstanding_effects": [],
  "provenance": {
    "source": "legislation.gov.uk",
    "source_url": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo6/11-12/58/section/1",
    "retrieved_at": "2026-10-29T11:22:38.347332+00:00"
  },
  "licence": "Open Government Licence v3.0",
  "licence_url": "https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/",
  "attribution": "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives."
}