diff --git a/tokenizers/src/decoders/strip.rs b/tokenizers/src/decoders/strip.rs
index 9aeffec647..099787acd8 100644
--- a/tokenizers/src/decoders/strip.rs
+++ b/tokenizers/src/decoders/strip.rs
@@ -42,7 +42,11 @@ impl Decoder for Strip {
                 }
 
                 let mut stop_cut = chars.len();
-                for i in 0..self.stop {
+                // Bound the trailing strip by the token length: `self.stop` is a raw
+                // config value, so without `.min(chars.len())` a token made entirely
+                // of `content` and shorter than `stop` keeps decrementing `index` past
+                // 0, underflowing `usize` (debug panic / out-of-bounds index in release).
+                for i in 0..self.stop.min(chars.len()) {
                     let index = chars.len() - i - 1;
                     if chars[index] == self.content {
                         stop_cut = index;
@@ -52,6 +56,11 @@ impl Decoder for Strip {
                     }
                 }
 
+                // The leading and trailing windows can overlap when a short token is
+                // stripped from both ends (start_cut > stop_cut), which would make the
+                // slice range reversed and panic. Clamp so an over-stripped token
+                // collapses to an empty string instead.
+                let stop_cut = stop_cut.max(start_cut);
                 let new_token: String = chars[start_cut..stop_cut].iter().collect();
                 new_token
             })
@@ -77,4 +86,30 @@ mod tests {
             .unwrap();
         assert_eq!(res, vec!["He", " friend!"]);
     }
+
+    #[test]
+    fn short_all_content_token_does_not_panic() {
+        // A token made entirely of `content` and shorter than `stop` used to
+        // underflow `chars.len() - i - 1` (debug: subtract overflow; release:
+        // out-of-bounds index). It should strip what is there and stop.
+        let decoder = Strip::new('_', 0, 2);
+        let res = decoder.decode_chain(vec!["_".into()]).unwrap();
+        assert_eq!(res, vec![""]);
+
+        let decoder = Strip::new('a', 0, 5);
+        let res = decoder
+            .decode_chain(vec!["aa".into(), "aab".into()])
+            .unwrap();
+        assert_eq!(res, vec!["", "aab"]);
+    }
+
+    #[test]
+    fn overlapping_start_stop_windows_collapse_to_empty() {
+        // When the leading and trailing windows overlap on a short token,
+        // start_cut can exceed stop_cut; the slice used to panic on a reversed
+        // range and now collapses to an empty string.
+        let decoder = Strip::new('H', 2, 1);
+        let res = decoder.decode_chain(vec!["HH".into()]).unwrap();
+        assert_eq!(res, vec![""]);
+    }
 }