Peasants hold out when caught by police (11)

'peasants' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are plural nouns, I can't understand how they can define each other.

'hold out when caught by police' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
an anagram of 'hold' is 'lodh' which is present in the answer.
'when' could be 'e' (I've seen this in other clues) and 'e' is located in the answer.
'caught' could be 'c' (cricket abbreviation) and 'c' is located in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...

Can you help me to learn more?