China needs a law to restrict a "violent culture" that is permeating the country's media to protect the vulnerable youngsters from being poisoned, a national legislator said yesterday.

Nothing but legislation can limit the spread of violence-dominated media content by clearly defining where and how it can be carried, said Peng Fuchun, a deputy to the National People's Congress.

Peng, a philosophy professor at Wuhan University, said a culture of violence is propagating rapidly in China as a result of social transition, leaving a bad impact on social morals and blighting juvenile's growth.

Violence prevails in films and on the Internet, according to Peng.

The lack of a film rating system and an effective censor for TV shows has left teenagers exposed to violent scenes, said Peng, blaming film and TV producers who promote their products with detailed, vivid description of violence, horror and crime as selling points.

Many online games and about 70 percent of non-education Internet information contains violence, according to Fu.

"Online games about terror and war give young people a chance to taste the pleasure of fighting and killing in cyber space, while heroes in films, TV dramas and cartoons are unluckily at the same time killers, who always become teenagers' idols to follow and imitate in the real world," Fu said.

"We must make a law to restrict its spread," Fu said.

He also said psychological counseling services should be offered to teenagers to help keep them away from violence.

China has seen a 68 percent rise in juvenile crimes over the past five years and that figure will rise, according to a survey by the China Youth and Children Studies research group early this year.