Prostitution has existed in Tasmania (known as Van Diemen's Land prior to 1856) since its early days as a penal colony, when large numbers of convict women started arriving in the 1820s. Some of the women who were transported there already had criminal records related to prostitution, but most were labelled as such, despite it not being either illegal or grounds for deportation. Prostitution was not so much a profession as a way of life for some women to make ends meet, particularly in a society in which there was a marked imbalance of gender, and convict women had no other means of income. Certainly brothels were established by the end of the 1820s, and records show girls as young as 12 were involved, while prostitution was associated with the female factory at Cascades. Nevertheless, the concept of 'fallen women' and division of women into 'good' and 'bad' was well established. In an attempt to produce some law and order the "Vagrancy Act 1824" was introduced.