Be punished by the police? (3,2)
I believe the answer is:
cop it
'be punished' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'the police?' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'the' could be 't' (the is pronounced as a 't' sound in some dialects) and 't' is located in the answer.
'police?' could be 'cop' (cop can mean informally mean a police officer) and 'cop' is found in the answer.
A single letter 'i' remains which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'by' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for cop it that I've seen before include "Get into trouble; be killed" , ""get in loads of trouble!"" , "Be punished" , "Get it in the neck" , "Suffer the consequences!" .)