Washington ? America’s Roman Catholic bishops are adhering to the reforms they adopted to prevent further sex abuse by clergy, but those policies have flaws that limit their effectiveness, an audit overseen by former FBI officials said Tuesday.

The study recommended changes that victims have been advocating for years, including improved monitoring of guilty priests and a survey of victims asking how bishops should respond when an abuse claim is made.

The bishops adopted the reforms in June 2002, at the height of the scandal, which began two years ago this week with revelations about a single predatory priest in the Archdiocese of Boston. The scandal spread to every American diocese, with thousands of new abuse claims across the country.

The review found 90 percent of the 195 U.S. dioceses were complying fully with the plan, which dictates how guilty priests should be punished and requires bishops to protect children. Among the 20 judged not fully compliant are the archdioceses of New York; Anchorage, Alaska; and Omaha, Neb. Four dioceses were not audited for various reasons.

Most common among the violations were failures to put child-protection programs in place and to establish codes of conduct and carry out background checks on staff.

“For the most part, it was not a refusal to adhere to the policies, it was a lack of understanding of how to do so,” said William Gavin, a former FBI official whose company, the Gavin Group of Boston, conducted the audit for the bishops.

A spokesman for the Archdiocese of New York, the second-largest in the nation, questioned whether New York should have been included on the list. Joseph Zwilling said the diocese’s only shortcoming was failing to fully implement a training program to protect children.

Nearly 70 percent of the dioceses received at least one commendation for exceptional progress in some area, such as communicating well with parishioners. The Archdiocese of Chicago was singled out for its work helping victims obtain counseling.

Investigators, however, also found that some accused clergy could not be located, and that five accused priests in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati still were in ministry at the time of the audit, a violation of the policy. The clergymen have since been removed, and the Cincinnati diocese was deemed to have come into compliance.