The right kind of training for people in jobs which involve dealing with the public can help, especially when it allows people to exercise their natural abilities. I am often impressed by the way some check-out workers in supermarkets deal with customers with communication problems and odd behaviours.

At times however I get the impression that some training makes things worse - I've observed people acting in a inflexible and clumsy way in these situations, as if they are applying some rules they have been given. When that applies in the case of police - and at times it does - that can be very dangerous. Especially of course in places where they carry deadly weapons - not just guns, but tasers.

Training can have other unlooked for consequences - I was reading of a case where evidently the police had been given sign language training. The consequence for one young deaf man was that he was arrested for using the sign for "pig" to refer to a policeman.