Poor fugitives finally caught (8)
I believe the answer is:
strapped
'poor' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'fugitives finally caught' is the wordplay.
'finally' indicates one should take the final letters.
'caught' becomes 'trapped' (trapping is a kind of catching).
The final letter of 'fugitives' is 's'.
's'+'trapped'='STRAPPED'
(Other definitions for strapped that I've seen before include "whipped" , "Secured; short of money" , "affected by shortage" , "Without, or very short of, cash" , "in need of money" .)