SIR – Re the letters and web-posts in the T&A (April 23) about the lack of prisons in this country.

If anyone has been to Freemantle in Western Australia they will have seen how our forefathers dealt with this problem. In the late 1700s and early 1800s convicts were shipped out to Australia but on arrival they found no prisons.

So what did they do? They set the prisoners on building the prisons. When completed they bunged the convicts in the prisons. Problem solved.

How come no-one has hit on the same solution here? These convicts had just endured a journey across the world, would not be in the best of health and were in a country far hotter than the one they had left. Nevertheless, they built the prisons.

Can we not learn from this 200-plus-year-old policy? It worked then, why not now?

Some of these ‘convicts’ were there for perhaps stealing half a loaf of bread to stay alive, or maybe a yard of string.

To say we have no prisons is no excuse. There is always a way.

J Lewis Nicholl, Plumpton Gardens, Wrose