Trapping the nine escapees, you grant, is not hard (7)
I believe the answer is:
lenient
'hard' is the definition.
Both the answer and definition are adjectives. Perhaps you can see an association between them that I can't see?
'trapping the nine escapees you grant is not' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
an anagram of 'nine' is 'nien' which is present in the answer.
'grant' could be 'let' and 'let' is located in the leftover letters.
This accounts for all the letters.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for lenient that I've seen before include "Easy, soft" , "Clement" , "Showing tolerance" , "Light" , "Indulgent, lax" .)