EDITORIAL L.A.'S MARSHALL PLAN ANTI-GANG EFFORT MUST BE MASSIVE, COMPREHENSIVE.

AFTER months of study, civil-rights attorney Connie Rice found Los Angeles' gang problem is so big, so pervasive and so dangerous that nothing short of a ``Marshall Plan'' can correct it. She's right.

Rice wants to see a coordinated, robust effort to prevent youths from joining gangs, help lure them out of gangs, and put an end to the self-destructive gang culture. These efforts must be educational, economic, political, cultural and results-oriented -- nothing like the piecemeal, lackadaisical approach the city has taken for the past 20 years.

At first blush, though, Rice's rhetoric may seem over the top. The Marshall Plan, after all, was designed to rebuild the whole of Western Europe after much of the continent was blown to smithereens during World War II. L.A.'s gang situation may be bad, but certainly it isn't that bad.

Yet while there's no comparing the scope of the destruction in World War II and our current, massively failing ``war on gangs,'' in some respects, the necessary relief efforts are more similar than one might think.

The approach to ending the plague of gang violence, like the effort to rebuild Western Europe, must be comprehensive. Rice, who was hired by the city to make the study, identifies every segment of society -- police, courts, schools, political officials, philanthropists, business, Hollywood, civic groups, faith-based organizations and more -- as playing critical roles.

The effort must also be widespread.

It's not enough, Rice argues, to continue small-scale programs that offer limited relief while not addressing the larger, underlying problem. Just as the Marshall Plan was expansive and ambitious, so, too, must our efforts to eliminate the conditions that give rise to the gang culture.

And like the Marshall Plan, our reconstruction of our inner city must do more than simply pour money on a problem.

Although expensive, the Marshall Plan worked -- within just a few years, the economy of every participating country, save Germany, had grown beyond pre-war levels. Likewise, our gang-intervention programs must be held to rigorous standards of effectiveness. It must be geared toward creating stronger communities that can sustain themselves over the long run.

But where the similarity between L.A.'s anti-gang strategies and the Marshall Plan is most striking is the urgency. After World War II, American leaders realized that the failure to rebuild Germany after World War I created the conditions that led to World War II. They weren't going to make that mistake again.

We, too, cannot continue to make the mistake of ignoring the cultural and economic conditions that give rise to today's gangs. Because the problem will only grow and spread, claiming more victims all the while, if we do nothing.

Like the Marshall Plan, a comprehensive anti-gang effort will cost a lot of money. But then, gangs cost L.A. and its residents about $2 billion a year -- a price we've been paying for decades, and which, if left unaddressed, will only climb for decades more. If done right, this is an investment that, like the Marshall Plan, will quickly pay for itself.

And, like the Marshall Plan, it's investment we can't afford not to make.