It houses convicted felons and occasionally people with custody rulings in need of psychiatric assistance and observation.

Herstedvester was built in 1935 for the detention and imprisonment of psychopaths.

[1] Upon establishment, they were the first European prison to use a treatment method known as democratic therapeutic community.

[4] In 2019, Greenland's first fully closed prison opened in the capital Nuuk and Greenlandic prisoners in Herstedvester were offered a transfer.

However, a large proportion have wished to continue serving their sentence in Herstedvester instead of Nuuk.