(PLAINVIEW, TX) – A mother and her daughters got a view they didn’t expect while driving near a West Texas prison.
The mother, 30, told the Plainview Daily Herald that she and her two daughters, ages 10 and 15, saw three inmates being strip-searched Friday morning near the parking lot area of the Formby Unit east of Plainview.

The older daughter spotted the naked men and told her mother, who was driving.

“It was hot and they were out there for everybody and God to see,” the woman, who was not identified, was quoted as telling the newspaper. “If I look at a naked man, I want it to be of my own accord.”

Stan Kenney, the unit’s assistant warden, said the routine strip search for new inmates was visible to the public because a section of a partition had dropped. It has since been put back up, he said.

The mother said she believes others probably saw the naked trio.

“It seemed like unusual punishment to me,” she said. “I think they could take them somewhere else to do their strip search.”

Warden J.V. Young said strip searches are done on new prisoners or those returning from work details to protect staff and prevent offenders from bringing in contraband or drugs.

“The strip searches are not designed as punishment,” he said. “We try to be sensitive to the public but it may also send a message that people can lose their privacy (if they run afoul of the law). It’s the nature of the beast in the prison system.”

Plainview is about 45 miles north of Lubbock.