It is a discussion just by its setting. Into it you can read clues on how the author or the community perceive some stuff. But it is not meant in any specific way to communicate a point, or to be a critique or prisons, or even to just make you think.

It does not make you feel bad when you slaughter inmates, it does not try to portray them as people; not even as dehumanized people, this kind of analysis is just not in the game.

(Disclaimer: I played it a while back, maybe it changed from the last time I saw it)

> it does not try to portray them as people; not even as dehumanized people

It was an explicit goal of theirs to do that, including giving every prisoner a backstory.

Whether they accomplished their goal of portraying them as people is a different story, but they did try.