British crook learned about island down-and-outs queuing (9)
I believe the answer is:
breadline
'down-and-outs queuing' is the definition.
I can't judge whether this defines the answer.
'british crook learned about island' is the wordplay.
'british' becomes 'b' (abbreviation e.g. in 'BBC').
'crook' indicates an anagram (a crooked or broken form of the letters).
'about' says to put letters next to each other.
'island' becomes 'i' (geographical abbreviation).
'learned' after 'i' is 'ilearned'.
'ilearned' is an anagram of 'readline'.
'b'+'readline'='BREADLINE'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for breadline that I've seen before include "who may expect to get damper?" , "Subsistence level - queue for food" , "subsistence-level employment" , "Queue of hungry people" , "in poor condition" .)