(British) a place where criminals congregate, often an area of a town or city.
1980, Jerry White, Rothschild Buildings: life in an East End tenement block, 1887-1920‎, The Flower and Dean St rookery had been home to many of those who lived at least partly by street crime.
1995, Cyrille Fijnaut, Changes in Society, Crime and Criminal Justice in Europe, These rookeries sustained criminal social systems that provided schooling in crime for the young and newcomers.
1998, Stephen Inwood, A History of London‎, In the Victorian imagination, crime and the criminal class were always associated with rookeries, the dense slum areas in which criminals were said to live.
