FARGO - Police here are working with local agencies to set up a notification program for missing persons with developmental disabilities, similar to the Amber Alert system for children.

Agencies that work with developmentally disabled people are planning a list of "vulnerable adults" that would include photos, physical descriptions and other personal information. It would be made available to police and posted on a national law enforcement database.

"(Abductions) don't happen very often," said Fargo Police Lt. Tod Dahle. "But when they do happen, we need to take action … and it helps to have a professional assessment of the person."

Amber Alerts are media bulletins on kidnapped children and their abductors. They are named after Amber Hagerman, a 9-year-old girl abducted and later found murdered in Texas.

Notices on adults who are missing usually are not immediate unless it can be shown they're in danger, Dahle said.

"You may have someone who decides to take a break from life and split for a while," Dahle said. "It's difficult to take action unless someone can explain why."

Several local agencies met with police to develop the program after a Jamestown man was convicted of taking a mentally disabled woman from Fargo and forcing her to have sex. David Sukup, 39, was sentenced in September to 125 years in prison.

"The police department felt that if they had more information it might have allowed them to react a little more quickly in that case," said Jim Berglie, spokesman for Community Living Services, a group that provides services for people with disabilities.

The woman who was abducted by Sukup did not have a guardian, making it even more difficult for police to get information, Dahle said.

"I think this will help in cases like that," Berglie said. "We're also going to offer this to families who have children with developmental disabilities."

More than 200 people will be screened for the program, Berglie said.

"It's somewhat of a subjective assessment," he said. "We'll look at the person's level of functioning, their history, skills in communicating needs … things like that."

Dahle would like to see the program expanded throughout the state and region.

"How quickly that may happen, I don't know," he said.