Director of Milwaukee’s Office of Community Wellness & Safety wants creative collaboration with community to make the city more safe

Adam Procell shares the stage with Derek Mosley at Marquette University Law School. Photograph by Alexandria Staubach.

By Alexandria Staubach
​
“Until the community itself says enough is enough… we’re applying Band-Aids to cure cancer,” said Adam Procell at Marquette Law School’s Lubar Center for Public Policy Research and Civic Education “Get to Know” series today.

Procell, who was appointed by Mayor Cavalier Johnson to direct the reimagined Office of Violence Prevention, spoke to a full house about his own past and his vision for a safer Milwaukee.
​
Procell brings a unique perspective to the role, having served 23 years incarcerated for violent crime as a youth.

“When most people know the worst thing you’ve ever done as a human being, there’s an immediate power imbalance,” said Procell, discussing the aspects of his new role that have surprised him.

In his role as director, Procell seeks to prioritize youth in his violence disruption efforts. “I think our city is in trouble,” he said. “I don’t know that we fully grasp how deep it goes,” said Procell about his observation that many have "lost their ability to resolve conflict without violence.”

Procell highlighted a recent exchange he had with youth from all over the city participating in a 2025 Emergency Gun Violence Summit, which he said demonstrated the issue.

He recounted asking an auditorium full of students at the summit to show their hands if they had heard gun shots from their home in the last month. Procell shared that 95% of students raised their hands. “That is not normal” and “if we don’t understand how that is impacting our young people…we are in trouble,” Procell told the audience.

Procell’s office reported five other key areas in addition to early childhood intervention that his office will work to disrupt. He cited real time violence interventions, diversion, enhanced victim services because “hurt people hurt people,” reentry services, and community/police relations as the other key areas.  

We need to “find a way to leverage what each one of us has to work together,” said Procell, who is no stranger to creative collaboration in the name of creating unlikely bedfellows.

At Marquette, Procell helped create an undergraduate course where enrolled students sat side by side with 10 incarcerated students for an entire semester. “It was shocking the amount of community that is created,” said Procell.

As a founder and CEO of Paradigm Shyft, a company offering “multidimensional justice solutions,” Procell has also arranged sometimes strange opportunities for law enforcement and the formerly incarcerated community to connect.

From orchestrating role reversal traffic stop exercises with law enforcement, to parachuting with police, Procell stressed how quickly police and community interactions can “escalate if you don’t see each other has humans.”

“If you can prove (mutual humanity) to yourself 100 feet in the air, you can prove to yourself that it doesn’t matter on the ground,” said Procell about organizing the formerly incarcerated to parachute with police.

Procell founded Paradigm Shyft with Shannon Ross, who serves as the company’s operations assistant and is also the founder/executive director of The Community. Procell and Ross, who are frequent collaborators, are often praised for their efforts to reshape the narrative around the formerly incarcerated in Milwaukee. The pair met speaking to youth on a panel at Oak Hill Correctional Institution while they were both incarcerated.

Procell also shared his experience visiting other countries to learn about their criminal justice systems. “The difference is culture,” said Procell. He thinks meaningful change will only come to our justice system when “culturally we find a way to see people as human.”