Mission

ST. JEROME AND THE LION'S PAW, BY LEONARDO DA VINCI

The Pros and Cons Program helps create music in prisons to support healing, restorative justice, victim support, and education.

Participants build better relationships to themselves and others, obtaining practical knowledge and skills across platforms of music, engineering and computer literacy.

Funds raised by Pros and Cons provide instruments, recording equipment and mentors to teach skills, promote healing in situ for incarcerated people.

So many people who have participated in these projects have moved on from here. Wherever you are, whatever directions your lives have taken, we wish you God’s peace. Bless you all.

The Christ's Breath
I am
A hole in a flute
That the Christ’s breath moves through
Listen to this music.
~ Hafiz

“It is said that it is easier to build children than to repair broken men; but who amongst us decides which of us is broken and unworthy of repair? As someone who has been held by the hands of time for over 18 years as the sands of time continue to fall, I am speaking from experience: I have built a foundation to securely walk on with the comfort and creativity of music. It has nurtured my soul, providing me with lessons of wisdom and understanding to pass on.”
Lawrence Da Silva, former federal prisoner
Hugh Christopher Brown was inspired to start Pros and Cons (encouraging professional mentorship of inmates) in 2010, after the closure of the prison agricultural program, including the farm at Pittsburgh Institution.

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