Joanna Priestley and Joan Gratz toured three Oregon prisons and sent out 450 questionnaires to inmates as research for this film. One of the questionnaires, by Jeff Green, was chosen for the dialog for the "Con" section and one of the tour guides, Lt. Janice Inman, was chosen as the narrator for the "Pro section of Pro and con.
Writer Katherine Dunn ("Geek Love") worked briefly with Priestley and Gratz on Pro and Con. She requested that her credit on the film be "Best Boy".