PIERRE - The state prison system in South Dakota had fewer inmates at the end of the state budget year than it did a year earlier.

That's the first reduction in nearly two decades.

On June 30, the number of state prison inmates totaled 3,392. That's 77 fewer inmates than were in the prison system one year earlier.

A better measure, however, is the average number of prisoners in the last year, which was 3,378, a decline of 50 inmates from the previous year. That marks the first decrease in that figure since between state fiscal years 1988 and 1989.

Tim Reisch, secretary of the state Department of Corrections, said fewer people were sent to prison last year and more prisoners were paroled early.

The number of inmates admitted to prison who were assessed as having a meth dependency issue also dropped significantly. Men's meth dependency dropped from 32 percent to 24 percent, while the rate for women fell from 47 percent to 42 percent.

"We have made a concerted effort toward providing quality chemical dependency treatment in prison, and requiring aftercare in the community," Reisch said in a release. "I firmly believe the state's Circuit Court Judges are not sending people to prison who would be more appropriately sanctioned in some other manner."