While that may be true, I have jumped the turnstile several times because the damn card reader wasn't working, or my card randomly deactivated, which has happened four times (!) since I've lived here (just over a year). I am decidedly not a hooligan, nor have I ever been, but if I need to be someplace and SEPTA's stuff isn't working properly, I will jump the turnstile. I generally try to ask the sometimes nice person in the booth to let me in before I do that, though.

What WOULD help dramatically and be a long term solution, but seems politically and economically impossible at the moment, is a greater police presence throughout the system augmented by homeless outreach personnel. This sort of thing has made a huge difference in NYC after the pandemic, and periodically before.