"There is a global standard that says that prisoners deserve the same standard of health care as the communities they come from," Chris Beyrer, a professor of public health and human rights at the Bloomberg school and another co-author of the study, said in a statement. "But in country after country, this standard is not being met, and our failure to handle the post-release linkage to care and services is the single most important thing that has to change. The idea that we can ignore these epidemics among prisoners is bad public health."