Note they take action, imprisoning shady director for maltreatment (6)
I believe the answer is:
misuse
'maltreatment' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both acts as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps there's an association between them I don't understand?
'note they take action imprisoning shady director' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'note' could be 'mi' (as in do-re-mi) and 'mi' is located in the answer.
'action' could be 'use' (use is a kind of action) and 'use' is present in the answer.
A single letter 's' remains which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
'for' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for misuse that I've seen before include "bad treatment" , "Ill-treatment" , "Apply badly or incorrectly" , "Maltreat" , "Mistreat, misapply" .)