This article examines suicide from a phenomenological perspective. The perceived subjective world of the inmate subculture is given careful consideration. The relationship between inmates’ ethnicity, socioeconomic status, & suicide is explained. For inmates most susceptible (white/middle-class) to a double-deviant status, reality becomes anomic & suicide becomes a cognitive alternative to a meaningless situation & an alternative to their socially constructed sense of reality. (39 refs.)